


284 reasons why

by awedravioli



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Smallville, Superman (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Biting, Blackmail, Come Eating, Coming Untouched, Denial of Feelings, Enemies to lovers except be careful with that 'L' word, Frottage, Hair-pulling, Irresponsible Use of Superpowers, Luthor has 99 problems and Superman is all of them, M/M, Marking, Masochism, Masturbation, Minor Injuries, Not So Minor Injuries, Oral Sex, Orgasm Denial, Possessive Behavior, Rough Sex, Superman did not think deals with supervilains included blowjobs, What Have I Done, also has no idea how feelings work, fighting for dominance/control, he now stands corrected, lots of denial flying around folks, love/hate for the win, regret: activated, simple strategies are sometimes the best strategies, the tags will just keep coming I guess, what are tags, what else
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:48:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22242871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awedravioli/pseuds/awedravioli
Summary: There were deals with supervillains that ended good, deals that ended bad, and deals that ended with Superman on his knees on the clean floor of Luthor's penthouse.Those were the kind of deals one was better off not making if they wanted to avoid some unpleasant discoveries on both sides.Superman suddenly pulled away and his gentle expression turned into something cold and sharp.‘What do you mean, you ‘love me’?’ he asked, eyes narrowed.With a start, Luthor realised his lips had been moving, moving and saying things he never said out loud. That warm feeling tore itself away from him brutally, spraying blood and gore all over the floor.He let out a short humourless chuckle and turned around so that they were finally face to face.‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Relationships: Clark Kent/Lex Luthor
Comments: 69
Kudos: 176





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally have no idea how I wrote this. Like seriously, I have troubles even writing 'cock' and then this thing suddenly landed in my lap. I might be possessed in which case: keep it up, unknown entities, I've never written anything in such a short span of time.  
> Unbeta-ed so read at your own risk.

He knew he couldn’t possibly prevent the explosion so he flew to Lextower, shattering glass and concrete as he flew straight in like a missile, grabbing Luthor by the neck. As usual.

Luthor didn’t even blink, didn’t bother with resisting. His heart rate stayed level. He knew he had nothing to fear and couldn’t possibly be safer because the alien had _codes_ , rules he never broke, so he tried to make himself comfortable, hanging in the air. He still had that annoying smirk, that expression of absolute contempt plastered on his face, as if he believed himself superior in every way.

Oh, how Superman wanted to snap his neck every time he looked at him like that. He shivered all over in with that desperate useless fury he could never act on.

‘Stop the countdown!’ he shouted into his face, tightening his grip some more. He was running out of air but he was as still as a ragdoll, without the slightest worry. He pointed to his neck then his mouth, gesturing that he couldn’t talk with a dry smile.

Superman let him go but to his disappointment, Luthor didn’t tumble down to the floor and instead landed neatly on both of his feet. He cleared his sore throat a few times. A red hand-shaped mark blossomed on the skin of his neck. 

‘Stop it!’ Superman roared again and his eyes turned red.

‘I don’t know if I should, it’d be a nice test to see how the internal structure of my facility deals with the explosion. What would I get out of cancelling that?’ he asked calmly, completely ignoring how the superhero seethed with anger.

‘What happens if I don’t? You can’t disactivate it yourself, you won’t kill me, you can’t even torture me.’

‘I will if I have to.’ Superman finally said, teeth gritted so hard his jaw hurt, because he knew it was just another empty threat. He’d tried to beat Luthor up on a few occasions and he’d only laughed into his face. He knew he couldn’t manage to be cruel enough to get through to him once he’s made up his mind. Even this far, he could hear the panicked screams of the people who couldn’t get out of the building.

‘Of course, all for the greater good.’ Luthor snorted.

‘Alright, there is one little thing you can do for me, since you’re so desperate to help.’

Superman’s brows furrowed. He looked him in the eyes and then straight through them, trying to guess his intentions. 

‘What do you want, Luthor?!’ he asked, balling his hands into fists at his sides.

‘Hmm…’ he looked thoughtful for a moment, as if he hadn’t already planned this through, purposefully wasting more of his time.

‘Get down on your knees and suck me off.’

Superman’s eyes widened.

‘Do not joke around.’ He warned, throat tight. It only took one look at Luthor’s smug face to know he was being serious.

‘So your selflessness did have some limits. Interesting. Kind of shame about the 284 people though. It just wasn’t their day. Well, we still have six minutes and half. I think I’ll just walk myself to the police station then. I suppose we’ll make it involuntary manslaughter and some of my surviving employees can take the fall for it.’ He turned his back on him, walking away purposefully as though he really thought that’d be the end of it.

‘Luthor.’ Superman started warningly. He grabbed him by the shoulders but had to will himself to even look into his eyes now.

‘You’re sick.’ a half-hearted insult, more of a complaint really. It was as good as an agreement.

‘Well, I suppose one has to be a little sick in my profession.’ Luthor shrugged his shoulders, unworried.

‘Did we change our decision?’ he asked sweetly. Superman looked away, face heated with embarrassment.

‘I can’t let those people die.’ He managed through his gritted teeth.

‘Then get down here.’ Luthor pointed at the floor before his expensive black shoes. Superman glared at him hatefully before his eyes darted to the clock hanging on the wall and he slid on his knees, barely containing his frustration.

He could see Luthor’s smug smile from an entirely new angle, among other things he’d rather not see. This was beyond humiliating. 284 people.

‘Do I have to do everything by myself?’ a chiding comment from above and Luthor reached down to unzip his fly and almost flung that thing into his face. Superman flinched visibly, drawing back.

It was pale and thick and it looked positively alien from this close up as it stood out against the black of his suit trousers. It was filling up with blood as he watched it, standing up like a bizarre inflatable castle from human meat. He looked up at Luthor questioningly. His expression was still as smug as before but there was something hungry mixed in. His eyes were glued to him, watching his every move and storing it somewhere in the deep dark recesses of his mind, and only thin ring of his green irises remained, the rest having been eaten up by his impossibly wide pupils.

Superman shivered involuntarily. He recognised it as what he’d thought was Luthor’s usual look, except this time it was intense enough that he could see the lust desperately bubbling under the surface. It’d never occurred to him before.

Luthor put one hand on his head, twirling his dark curls on his fingers gently before he yanked them at full force, jerking Superman’s head backwards to take a good look at his perfect face, to watch him squirm under his control. The two electric blue eyes stared at the clock, at him, between his legs, then back at him.

‘You’re running out of time.’ He noted in a low voice and let him go again. Not a single hair gave in. He went back to gently petting his head. 

Superman tried to shake the hand off, turning his head like a confused dog, but unless he wanted to waste more time swapping it away and then arguing with him over it, it was there to stay. Luthor was half-hard already and he felt his own cock stirring in his suit, overly curious and completely ignorant of its inconvenient timing. 

He glanced at the clock again and put one of his hands on him, jerking him quickly and roughly. He didn’t get far with it.

‘I remember telling you to suck me off.’ Luthor reminded him soon enough, tugging his head to the side again, just because he could and he loved moving him around like his puppet. His. He loved the sound of it. 

Superman glared at him silently. He didn’t trust himself with making any kind of comment that wouldn’t be just a string of curses so he kept quiet. He leaned in and put the head of the now hard cock in his mouth before slowly sliding more of it inside. Luthor let out a content sigh, running his hand through his hair appreciatively. 

Superman had no idea what he was doing. His mouth was full of the salty taste of skin and his lips felt numb when they were stretched into a full O around the shape of it. He went on with it, moving to and fro as Luthor stood completely immobile, intent on making him work for it. He put his hands on his hips for better leverage and there would certainly be two purple bruises soon but it looked like Luthor couldn’t care less, if the quiet moans and sharp surprised intakes of air were any indication. He’d rather he stayed quiet. His cock twitched at each of those sounds, begging for his attention.

Luthor pushed his head closer to him and Superman followed obediently, perhaps too quickly, sliding in until his lips touched the base and kissed the skin low on his stomach, throat stuffed with his cock. It tickled at the root of his tongue and his gagging reflex almost kicked in as his throat tightened around it in dry spasms. He had to stop right where he was, taking deep breaths through his nose to stop himself from throwing up. Luthor appreciated the sensation, letting out a long wanton moan. Superman just huffed into his skin in a reply. There were two hands grabbing at his head now, seemingly undecided whether to caress or to pull. 

He started moving again very slow, pulling away. He felt almost like a magician as he made the cock reappear again somewhere from the dark depths. It just kept going on and on and he wondered how he’d managed to fit it in. Luthor impatiently thrust himself all the way in before he could figure it out, rubbing the back of his throat unpleasantly again. Superman let out a muffled groan, surprised at the sudden change. He had hard time swallowing around it and saliva started trickling from one corner of his mouth, but Luthor didn’t seem to notice or particularly care.

He pulled out before rushing back in desperately as he started fucking his mouth earnestly. He dragged his head back and forth by his hair, knowing full well that he couldn’t hurt Superman like this even if he tried. The alien let him do as he pleased, making no move to move away from the onslaught, letting himself get used up. He hung on to his hips as if his life depended on it and his eyes only snapped opened for a few short moments after some particularly harsh thrusts. His sore overstuffed mouth seemed filled up with saliva and Luthor could swear he’d heard him try to slurp it down around his cock but some of it still trickled down from his lips.

He pulled out completely, admiring the damage he’d done on the man of steel. The flushed face with black curls plastered to his sweaty forehead, his swollen red lips. His eyes opened up confusedly and he looked up. He knew Luthor hadn’t finished yet and he hated the interruption, his own body felt feverish and desperate for release with his dribbling cock making a wet mess of the inside of his pants. Sitting there and taking it from Luthor without touching himself seemed unbearable but letting him waste seconds on savouring the moment was downright impossible. 

He spared him one last look before he forced his cock back to his hot mouth in a single thrust then halfway out and right back in like a well-oiled piston, moving at an astounding speed. Before Luthor registered it he was in and out twice. He only managed to let out a very undignified yelp in surprise, pulling at Superman’s hair desperately. It didn’t slow the movement any and his hands, still tangled in his black hair, were jerking to and from his body uselessly, completely out of his control. The speed was only picking up.

He cursed and groaned and tried to pull away put the hands on his sides wouldn’t let him. He desperately fought against the moans that were pulled out of him but they wrenched his mouth opened and broke free, loud and shameless and he couldn’t possibly stop himself. His body was filled up with searing heat sliding down into his cock in waves and he made one last attempt to slow Superman down. Without any effect.

The head down on his cock moved so fast it almost blurred. That was not good. That was not good.

He didn’t want to come so soon, he wanted to - god – he wanted to take his time with him. Everything was going so well up until now, exactly according to plan before Superman somehow came up on top as he always did and he lost all of control over him, over himself even.

‘God.’ 

He cursed again, almost whining this time. His jaw hurt from how it was jerked open with every new moan and he was so close, so close but be can’t- he shouldn’t-

‘Slow do-‘ he almost begged, but his breath hitched in his throat. He came, emptying inside of Superman’s mouth. The man could feel it flowing down his sore throat, wave upon wave of it.

‘Oh god.’ Luthor breathed out, still feeling the pleasure ripple through him. His knees seemed ready to give up underneath him so he braced himself on Superman again. He caressed his scalp, his forehead, the impossibly soft skin of his red cheeks, slow and loving, drunk on his orgasm.

Superman finally pulled away mercifully after he’d sucked him dry and stood up. Luthor’s legs wobbled but he somehow remained standing, dazed. He watched the alien run his tongue over his lips before he gave up and wiped the saliva off his chin with his sleeve. It felt like his mouth had suddenly shrunk up, raw and awfully empty, and every cranny of it was filled up with the new taste of semen. He sucked in his teeth, finding pockets of the taste there. It wasn’t so bad.

Luthor stared at him with enough reverence one’d think that he was the new messiah. He yearned to touch this gorgeous unreal thing again, one of his hands half-stretched out, but he found out he wasn’t able to. That invisible barrier was up again and he couldn’t possibly reach him, but instead of the usual anger and frustration he just felt a dull sense of loss.

‘The codes.’

‘What?’

Superman returned to his usual self and Luthor almost sobbed. He was so gorgeous. And he was his, he’d managed the impossible with such a primitive plan. And now he wasn’t again. He couldn’t just move on this fast.

His head was empty and he still couldn’t think completely straight.

‘The codes to your facility.’

He’d forgotten about it. Superman’s angry glare forced him to scribble a sequence of thirty numbers onto the first scrap he found. When he was handing it over he’d noticed it, the big bulge in his pants. He looked up at Superman incredulously, still holding on to the paper.

‘Help.’ He muttered, tongue heavy in his mouth.

‘Let me… help you…’ it was a desperate plea, empty of any of his usual self-control. He knew he was going to hate himself for this but if-

‘I…’ he went on, daring to brush his hand with one of his fingers. He suddenly realised how close his body was and an image of it, naked and hot, pressed against him, emerged in his head. It seemed so painfully real.

It immediately dissipated as Superman narrowed his eyes like he always did when he heard him talking. Standing there in front of him he felt like a child, so completely out of his depth. Stupid, ugly, insufficient, utterly humiliated. There was nobody else on the planet who could make him feel like this and he’d achieved it with just a single look and oh, how he hated it and how he hated him. His sweaty body suddenly felt cold and he shivered. Hated him so much.

The alien ran out of patience and tore the paper out of his hands. He immediately flew off to break into his secure lab and save the facility from an explosion of cobaltorium that is completely inert when mixed with nitrogen like it’s set to do in 31 seconds.

A wasted trip, but he’d find that out soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Lexcorp employees were harmed in the making of this.  
> We do not recommend trying this strategy on the hero of your own universe, but if you do make sure to invent a believable threat to minimalize civilian deaths (like in the example above) in case the negotiations end up taking too long. Success is not guaranteed.  
> Side effects might include: damage to the hard and/or soft tissues of the body especially in the area of face and genitals; unpleasant discoveries; mass murder; hurt feelings; and broken trust.  
> We must warn you that this behaviour is considered evil in most known universes and is punishable by law.


	2. Chapter 2

Flying back from the facility, Superman had trouble breathing without choking on his anger.

He’d spent his time entertaining Luthor in exchange for saving hundreds of lives that had never been in danger, blew him just for a practical joke and all of that was for what? So Luthor would have one more story to humour his friends back in Metropolis city prison with? He was just about ready to wring his neck for it.

He made point of making another hole into the Lextower as he broke in again, sending spray of concrete bits and glass shards flying into Luthor’s penthouse. It didn’t look like the man was in the room but the noise should lure him out quickly.

Sure enough, Luthor quickly emerged out of his bedroom, wearing only a blue bathrobe. He seemed tense and immediate sent him an annoyed glare, forgoing the innocent businessman routine, which told him that he wasn’t expected this early. All the better. ~~~~

‘What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you botched the rescue mission. I set it to your level.’ the man started out mockingly as he walked towards him, quickly assessing just how angry the alien was and how to best tiptoe just on the edge of him snapping.

He’d slipped back into his usual persona like it was a well-worn shoe. Like their recent encounter didn’t exist for him, like he’d never let his guard slip around him. 

Superman couldn’t decide if that comforted or irritated him.

‘The explosion that wasn’t physically possible?! One of your employees had a heart attack because he was convinced that was the end of him.’

‘But he’s alright now isn’t he?’ Luthor guessed. Not like anybody could die with Superman around. He stopped just in front of him and leaned onto his writing table, half-sitting on it. His bathrobe slid up and showed a thick stripe of his right thigh but he didn’t seem to notice. Being this close to naked in front of an alien who could see through walls didn’t seem to make much of a difference to him.

Superman disagreed. He found his eyes glued to that naked leg with some sort of morbid curiosity, like jabbing at an open wound. He remembered all the times he’d seen Luthor naked, all the times he’d glossed over it and went straight to the important matter. The fact that the important matter somehow involved Luthor’s dick in his mouth made it more difficult this time, however.

He couldn’t tear his eyes off his white skin, off the bulging muscles that ate up hundreds of hours but still somehow, after all this time, fell short compared to his. He had the itching need to find out if they at least felt better than the ones he owed to his Kryptonian genes.

Luthor blabbered on, ignorant of his long gazes.

‘Even if he wasn’t, 283 out of 284 is a good score.’

As he gesticulated, the fabric jumped further up his thigh and then slid back again in irregular intervals. The simple fact that he paid such attention to it irritated Superman incredibly.

He knew what he’d find if he were to follow that leg further up, he easily recalled that pale long cock, how it tasted. Somehow, even with that mystery gone, it wasn’t any less alluring. He could feel it thrusting into his mouth again, down his throat, and swallowed nervously. It sent blood rushing down to his crotch.

‘Take it as a test run.’

Luthor was still talking in that haughty tone, legs splayed carelessly over the tabletop, naively unaware of the feelings he was inciting in his guest. Nothing he had ever done managed to touch him after all. He couldn’t imagine the alien suddenly wanting him in return, but to be fair, neither could Superman just few hours ago. Those were the kinds of thoughts he strangled in their cribs before they could even develop, but they sure were crawling out of their graves now.

‘You’re welcome. The matter’s closed, I’ve been given a stern warning and you can leave now.’ He finished, somehow too hastily, but Superman wasn’t very keen on the fact that he’d have him leave in a similar state as before.

One of his hands shot up, almost by instinct, and grabbed him by the throat, like a snake leaping at its prey. Luthor was hauled further up onto the table by the sheer force of that attack and held with his back hovering above the tabletop.

‘I’m tired of you making fun of me.’ Superman said calmly, voice coming from somewhere far away. He had no idea what Luthor had said before, he wasn’t paying attention, and this was just the first thing that came to his mind. Because he was making fun of him, all the time, without fail.

He now stood between Luthor’s naked legs, felt them brushing against his sides. He’d love to press himself closer against him but then the man would find out that he was hard.

‘Maybe you should try it with your left, I’d like to have the bruises symmetrical.’ Luthor replied matter-of-factly as he felt his windpipe squashed, a little irritated this time. Their new position wasn’t exactly calming his nerves either. He braced himself with his arms on the table and the V of his bathrobe inadvertently opened up to show more of his hairless chest.

This close up, his smells filled Superman’s nose. The musk and rosewood of his cologne underlined with a bit of sweat and the smell of laundry detergent, lily and lavender, first from his bathrobe and the second probably from his bedlinen. And something like hand cream but not quite, maybe more like oil. He’d only catch a whiff of it when the bathrobe opened up.

He must have been outright sniffing Luthor because he’d noticed and his expression changed. Curiously, he suddenly seemed worried and little embarrassed.

‘Unless you have some proof that’d get me behind the bars ‘once and for all’, I’m sure there’s a kitten high up in the tree somewhere, desperately waiting for your rescue.’ he hissed at him angrily. 

Superman loosened the hand that had been squeezing his neck absentmindedly. He seemed to have been holding him at a different place because there were two hand-shaped bruises overlapping one another, slightly askew. The older one was a little darker, almost purplish hue. Both Luthor and Superman ignored them completely.

‘It seems like I’ve interrupted you at a bad time.’ the alien observed.

‘A proper guest would know to leave and return later.’ Luthor pointed out as if manners could possibly save him in this situation. He still made no effort to wrap himself better in his bathrobe. Superman imagined that, underneath it, his cock and balls were lying on the cold mahogany of table.

The thought of fucking Luthor crawled into his head, sudden, uninvited yet very persistent. The man wouldn’t dream of refusing him, he could see that much when he’d almost begged him to stay before. It was too easy, just like all bad decisions in his life had been. But he was desperate. And he wanted to take what he was owed, to nurse his pride a little after the service he was forced to give him.

Without thinking, he grabbed Luthor by one of his naked legs, high on his thigh, and pulled him closer. The skin was smooth and warm to the touch but he could feel the hard muscle underneath.

‘And a proper host would be of service.’ he replied, trying to keep himself calm, to stop his hand from climbing up the leg, but it still crawled under the rim of the bathrobe and started exploring left hip, scurrying into the comforting dark like an enormous woodlouse.

Luthor opened his mouth to retort something but nothing came to mind at that moment. Superman’s actions were too straightforward to allow for a different interpretation and as he talked on he just stared at him incredulously.

‘There are few things you can do for me. Your chance to _help_.’

A cruel reminder of how out of it he’d been before, but the words didn’t fail to make him shiver. His eyes carefully followed the hand under his single piece of clothing, chastely tracing his hipbone. Without a warning, as if to highlight the words, it slithered between his legs and gave his dick a tug to wake it up a little. Luthor’s breath hitched and his whole body jerked away, surprised. Superman drew in even closer and plastered himself to him so that he could feel his length against his inner thigh now, hot and hard, wrapped in that ridiculous uniform of his.

The alien _wanted_ him. His own cock twitched at that thought and quickly grew hard in the warm hand that stayed coiled around it, unmoving. He knew that he could hear his heart hammering in his chest quicker and quicker, could hear his erratic breathing. It was pathetic and humiliating but they were so close now. He moved his leg a little as if readjusting it into a more comfortable position, and rubbed it against his cock teasingly. 

Superman flared his nostrils, his massive chest shrunk and expanded with his deep breaths in time with Luthor’s innocent movements. He felt the heat building up inside of him until couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed Luthor’s ridiculous bathrobe, the thing that hadn’t stopped annoying him since he showed up, and tore it off his shoulders and hips in quick angry movements. It slid noiselessly down onto the table where it stayed under Luthor, draped over the table like an exceptionally ugly tablecloth.

Luthor froze, feeling the cold air on his skin, and looked at Superman as if unsure if that was the end of the violent outburst. He had an expression he’d never seen on him before, wild and hungry with pupils blown and jaw set, somehow managing to look both cruel and desperate, like a cornered animal.

He was shoved down onto the table, forced to lie prostrate in front of him, naked as the day when he was born. Superman still had that face that both terrified and aroused him as he raked his eyes down his body and when that didn’t suffice, ran one hand down his chest, fingers spread apart. It ran onto his taut stomach and then back again. Another hand joined in, feeling the skin and muscles tensing under their touch, appraising him like an animal up for an auction.

Something made Luthor doubt he’d fetch a high price and he made a move to raise himself back on his elbows. He got knocked back down and a single one of those hands kept him pinned to the tabletop effortlessly. Superman stared him down, blue clashing with green. Luthor very obviously lost and stopped struggling with one last hateful look and let out a huff, trying to pass his insecurity for simple annoyance. He hated feeling this defenceless but knew he couldn’t protest too much, because it might make the alien reconsider having sex with him.

Superman ran his hands down his body again, over the pink nipples poking out from his round pectorals invitingly, the ripples of his abdominal muscles, the bruises he’d left on his hips earlier, his wide meaty thighs. Finally, he put his hands on the inside of his knees and pushed his legs apart like one’d pry an oyster open. Luthor squirmed under him again, nervous now that he wasn’t the one in control, and Superman thoroughly enjoyed it.

He neglected the hard cock pointing up to the ceiling with its red head budding out and instead trailed his fingers down the soft skin under his balls to his hole. He poked the entrance with his fingers and it grudgingly slid in past the ring of muscle. He pulled the digit, wet with lubricant, out and gave Luthor his best questioning look. He knew why the man had been in such a hurry to get rid of him now.

‘I told you that you were interrupting.’ came the dry reply. He didn’t even bother denying that he’d been fucking himself before Superman broke in, even though admitting it caused him no special pleasure either. After all, they both knew who he was thinking of during it.

Superman stared at in disbelief for a moment longer before he spoke up as well.

‘How long have you been doing this?’

‘Before you arrived? Hard to say… two minutes? Your timing is terrible.’ Luthor replied casually, pretending he didn’t know ‘this’ stood for jacking off to the man he was supposed to hate not fingering himself.

Superman sighed, knowing he won’t get anything more out of him and abandoned the subject with a shake of his head. Instead, he returned back to the new surprisingly pleasant things his arch nemesis had to offer and slid his finger back in. Luthor’s insides were surprisingly hot and velvety and clung to him tightly. He’d never slept with a man or took any woman like that but in his lust-hazed mind, it suddenly went from a good to great idea and he bit his lip impatiently.

He eased a second finger in and watched Luthor’s face twitch as he thrust in and out. He had his jaw set and did his hardest to keep quiet during it. Superman half suspected that that was his punishment for hurting his pride earlier, the man could be surprisingly vocal and just remembering his desperate moans made his dick twitch painfully. And he’d have them repeated. He’d have Luthor lose his mind by the end of this - he owed him that much for getting them into this mess.

He must have found his prostate because Luthor threw his head back suddenly, tightening around his fingers like a vice. He rubbed the spot again and watched how his toes curled up. He shook his head from side to side, lips trembling as he tried to cope with the familiar sensation without letting any sound escape him. He failed and first a hiss then a moan escaped through the bars of his gritted teeth. Superman grinned at him smugly, full of dark amusement.

He massaged him with three fingers now and the noises kept on coming, spurring him on. Luthor’s body, pale, muscled, yet smooth and hairless like nine year old’s, looked ageless and perfectly obscene as it wriggled underneath him, muscles tensing and relaxing in quick spasms. His skin heated up and glistened wetly with sweat that started gathering in the hollow of his collarbone and the groove between his breasts. There was a string of precome running down his cock.

Superman suddenly realised the image of his white skin on the blue background of his bathrobe would haunt him every time he closed his eyes to sleep. That was Luthor’s fault too.

He was silently torturing himself watching him like this for a while longer before he finally pulled his fingers out. That got him Luthor’s full attention. His green eyes, hovering above his heaving chest, turned to watch him impatiently.

There was just one little problem. His uniform didn’t exactly have a zipper so it had to come off entirely, but he didn’t feel like giving Luthor the satisfaction of seeing him naked. He’d already gotten too many things off of him for free.

He grabbed his hips in both hands and dragged him halfway off the table before he flipped his entire body around carelessly. Luthor cursed when his face hit the wooden desk, stretching his legs down until they found the ground and he was standing again, bent over the table. He raised himself up angrily and got shoved down even quicker than before.

There was a ‘whoosh’ accompanied by a sudden gust of air, which told him that Superman used his speed but before he could as much as raise his head one big hand landed on his scalp and held his face down to the tabletop. He huffed a string of violent curses, feeling his breath hot on his face. The fleece of his bathrobe tickled his nose nastily. He heard him put some things down on the table and then Superman bent down over his body, letting him feel his now naked chest on his back, the tips of his nipples and his chest hair brushing against him.

Just to see his reaction, he pulled his hips backwards until they hit his, and his hot neglected cock slid between Luthor’s legs, rubbing against his length from bellow. Luthor suddenly stopped squirming and froze completely, trying to make sense of that sensation. When he moved against him again he shivered a little, letting out a content sigh. He hadn’t touched himself at all since they started. Maybe it’d be entertaining to keep him that way, see what he does.

With that thought, Superman pulled away. He was in a similar situation as him but intended to remedy it shortly. He let go of his head for a moment to open the bottle he’d gotten from the bedroom, poured some lubricant onto his hand and started stroking himself. He supposed Luthor guessed what he was doing because his entire body tensed up and his legs spread further apart impatiently.

The alien put his hands back into their previous positions, one holding him down and the second one around his hip, and chuckled. If you want supervillains to behave, you only have to bend them over the table, who knew. He’d rather not share this new knowledge with other heroes though.

He pushed into him slowly, spreading his insides apart. Luthor seemed loose enough but he still gripped him incredibly tight, making his breath stutter and his legs tremble with the desperate effort to just keep slow and steady.

He finally buried himself up to the hilt and his hips hit Luthor’s, the two of them falling into place like jigsaw puzzles.

It felt amazing.

Superman took deep breaths, hunched over his body, feeling the feverish heat radiating off of it. He rested his head in the nook of his neck, breathing him in. Rosewood, lily, and lavender.

He pulled out slowly, feeling his insides clinging to him desperately, before he slid right back in with a satisfied sigh. Luthor let out a little murmur. His face, Superman observed, suddenly turned red, but it might have just been the lack of air as he was pressed down to the table. He started thrusting into him quicker, stabbing his prostate until he had Luthor squirming underneath him, hands uselessly balled into fists.

He couldn’t see, couldn’t move, could hardly breathe, and Superman now rammed into him from behind at full force, shoving him further onto the table with each thrust. They got so close to the table that every new thrust sent his cock against a drawer. It hurt. He mewled into his bathrobe helplessly. It hurt too good. The alien soon noticed what got him so worked up and cruelly pulled him away again.

He hammered his prostate, incessantly, violently, trying to draw out sounds from him, sounds that got increasingly loud and desperate. He swore Superman had a big smug grin on his face, watching him fall apart. He hoped he would come soon. He could feel him breathing against his neck, hear him moan through his gritted teeth. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand this.

Superman didn’t know either. He was teetering on the edge and Luthor’s hole tightened around him with every thrust, nudging him closer and closer. A sudden impulse made him stop and haul Luthor up, grabbing him by his shoulder and forcing him to stand upright, back pressed against his sweaty chest. He looked around, confused and disoriented until he turned his head back and found his face. He was a mess. His eyes were out of focus and his lips were wet and glistening. There was a dark spot on the bathrobe now from where his face rested, wet with his saliva. Their eyes locked for a moment before Luthor turned his head and tried to lie down again, ever contrary. Superman had to hold him up with an arm around his chest as he started fucking him again.

Luthor felt his eyes on him but couldn’t keep quiet, no matter how hard he tried, moaning and whimpering as the abuse of his prostate started up again. His eyes rolled back into his skull, showing the whites of his eyes.

‘God you’re…’ Superman breathed out, surprised. He didn’t have a word for it but his dick twitched painfully where it was buried inside of him. Luthor turned his head away in embarrassment and let the alien chase him with his mouth, licking at the shell of his ear, his neck, until he finally started leaning in.

Superman’s pace grew fast and erratic as he felt the first throbs of orgasm and Luthor couldn’t handle it anymore, cursing and whimpering as he came without touching himself, dirtying the bathrobe flung over the table. The other man had no choice but to follow him when his muscles tightened around him and milked him harshly. He trembled as he filled Luthor’s insides, head jerked back as his orgasm washed over him, again and again.

They struggled to find their breath, chests arching up and down. Superman nuzzled Luthor’s neck, completely forgetting he had ever been mad at him. He marvelled at the colour of his eyes, his lips… his lips. Luthor looked at him pleadingly. He didn’t use to be this attractive, he couldn’t be, he’d have noticed. He leaned in and tasted the inside of his mouth in a wet sloppy kiss.

Luthor all but melted underneath him. His hands shot up to catch his head and he kissed him back desperately, whimpering something indistinct into his mouth, his whole body, still hot and tender from his orgasm, shivering in the sudden bliss of that intimacy. _Superman_ was kissing him, like he kissed Lois Lane or all of the other women he knew must have existed, the women he hated with such fervour, lying in his bed awake at night. 

He panted when they separated but immediately chased his lips, hands on both sides of his head, around his ears, ignoring the awkward angle, and devoured his mouth again and again, feeling incredibly lightheaded. Superman played along, licking his mouth, caressing his head and it made his chest tighten painfully. He had him again, so gorgeous, his. He loved him so much. He’d give him anything, let him do anything-

Superman suddenly pulled away and his gentle expression turned into something cold and sharp.

‘What do you mean, you ‘love me’?’ he asked, eyes narrowed.

With a start, Luthor realised his lips had been moving, moving and saying things he never said out loud. That warm feeling tore itself away from him brutally, spraying blood and gore all over the floor.

He let out a short humourless chuckle and turned around so that they were finally face to face.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘I’m not deaf or stupid. Don’t lie to me.’ Superman was somehow already back in his uniform again and dared to glare at him with his disgusting perfect eyes, and his disgusting perfect face had the same disapproving expression it always did. As if it wasn’t him who just held him down and fucked him on his own table, as if he wasn’t just asking him to tear his own heart out and bring it to him on a platter because he was curious how it looked. Just so he could laugh at him.

Before he registered it, he hit him over the face like a madman would, with all the force he was possibly capable off. Superman’s face jerked to the left a little and two of his fingers broke with a loud crack.

‘Are you al-‘

‘Get out!’ he shouted into his face. He knew how he looked, like a complete deranged idiot, like a child throwing a tantrum. The pain finally gripped his hand, his middle and ring finger jutting out at an impossible angle. He realised he was still standing there naked and crossed his arms over his chest, shivering from the cold. 

The other man was still looking at him without saying a word, without making the slightest move. He repeated himself, calmer and more hateful.

‘You got what you wanted and you made me sorry for the last time. Get out.’

Superman opened his mouth to say something, anything, but couldn’t find the words. He looked him over again, stopping at the bruises on his neck, at his broken fingers.

He turned his eyes away in resignation and left, because he had no idea how to fix Luthor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is, the second chapter. Please enjoy your smut with a side of bitter feelings because even though ma Kent might have told Clark not to stick his dick in crazy, she didn't say anything about people in the terminal stage of denial.  
> Will there be a third chapter, you ask? Maaaaybe.
> 
> Jfyi, it only took Superman two weeks to stop blushing when he saw somebody in a bathrobe. Luthor ended up having to buy a new one because he burned the blue one 'by accident'.


	3. Chapter 3

Luthor showed up to his next press conference in black turtleneck with two fingers in splint, excusing it as ‘being clumsy’, and immediately announced significant changes in Lexcorp policies.

He went through a lot of effort just so he could ignore Superman better after the confession, buy himself some time to lick his wounds. He returned to the philanthropic antics he pulled so often right after his release from prison, only without any of the steps preceding it. As far as anyone knew, however, Luthor simply woke up one day, battered up, and switched to his best behaviour, spending less time playing with kryptonite and more drinking.

Justice League started talking about it.

Batman caught him in the Watchtower and asked about his last Luthor intervention. He lied, rather poorly. Then when the fractures got a mention, he gritted his teeth and let out a simple disinterested ‘hm’. It was a short conversation.

If the other heroes suspected something, they didn’t call him out on it, which was for the best, really.

He didn’t feel like sharing how he’d gotten himself dragged into another one of Luthor’s deranged schemes or what he’d done after he returned, hungry and furious, to one-up him. Or how he often caught himself thinking about how good it had felt to have him writhing under him, to finally get some control over their exchanges.

He’d grown so used to thinking of him as a natural disaster over their years of antagonism and it was off-putting now that the human in Luthor became visible again. It made him wonder what he was feeling, what he was really aiming for, made his gaze on him linger that much longer.

The only thing that kept him sane was that he only caught glimpses of him now, at the conferences or when he just so happened to fly past Lextower. At the beginning, Luthor would move over to a different room, or if he could, a different building, on one occasion even to a different state. After few weeks, when his fingers healed and bruises faded, he replaced running away with simple glaring.

Five months after they slept together he’d start to seek him out, spending time out on his roof terrace, popping up in the places where the hero was supposed to make an appearance. He was back to looking at him like he’d done before except Superman knew what those long gazes meant now, could translate that desperate yearning. 

What made it all worse was that he knew Luthor loved him, that all the unpredictable back and forths, all the random interventions during fights actually made sense. His head buzzed with questions which still ultimately boiled down to that childish, confused ‘What do you mean, you love me?’. He hoped Luthor would keep his distance for a while longer, because he still hadn’t figured out how he was supposed to act around him without repeating the incident from the last time. 

Then Batman suddenly started talking about the tears in the multiverse barrier and the only machine in existence that’d allow him to investigate them further before they could get swarmed by whatever was waiting on the other side. It just so happened the machine was currently locked in one of Luthor’s laboratories which made Superman the ideal candidate for retrieving it. It didn’t seem like the Bat forgot their talk a few months back and wanted to test some of his theories.

Superman hated all about it, especially the fact that it seemed to improve Luthor’s mood significantly.

He pretended his visit bothered him but there was a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He loved it when they came to him for favours.

‘The Dark Matter Fluctuation Detector?’ he idly swirled the drink in his glass.

‘It’s just a prototype.’

‘I know. I’ll return it back to you right after we find out what kind of state the barrier is in.’

‘Can’t you make your own?’

Superman gave him a tired look. Lexcorp might have all the possible and impossible technology but he wasn’t here to hear him gloat.

‘Alright, I’ll take pity on you…’ Luthor announced graciously.

‘Thank you, I-‘

‘For a price, of course.’

‘I’m not telling you my real identity.’

His grin only grew at that which meant nothing good.

‘Shame, but I’ll survive without it. Since you came all the way here for my help, I’ll be happy to settle this as we did the 284.’

It’s been almost a year now and Superman had to fish for the number in his head, but when he did match it with its meaning, his expression darkened immediately.

‘I thought you learned better than to pull that trick last time.’

‘And I almost thought your league would manage without help from a supervillain, but here we are.’ he took a sip of gin from his glass.

‘They mopped the floor this morning so whenever you’re ready.’ he added with mock generosity. Superman just tilted his head to the side, jaw set.

Luthor walked to the table to put his glass down on it. He looked at him and lifted up one of his eyebrows, almost as a challenge. He made sure to keep his face as impassive as possible but his eyes were sparkling and his heartrate jumped up in anticipation. It was far from a subtle way of saying ‘give it to me again’.

Superman had to admit that the thought was tempting - getting riled up like he was supposed to and slamming him on to the hard wooden desk. He closed the distance between them so Luthor had to look up to him. His irises were kryptonite green in this lighting, the only things moving in his white face.

‘And here I thought you’d give me anything.’

It slid out of his lips before he could realise what he was saying. He could still hear it, the echo of a voice, soft and content, almost like a purr, repeating it. You’re so gorgeous, I love you so much, I’d give you anything, let you do anything.

Luthor’s face darkened immediately.

‘I could give you a bullet.’ He offered coldly, drawing Supeman’s eyes to the drawer where he kept his gun. That seemed to be a ‘no’ on talking his feelings over.

‘The Earth could be in danger.’

‘That’s nothing new, it’s on the verge of destruction every other week.’ he frowned at him, showing the wrinkles starting to form on his forehead.

‘I need that detector.’

Luthor opened his mouth to refuse, but all the words dissolved into a small startled sound on his tongue when Superman grabbed his cock through his trousers with a resigned sigh. His expression changed a little, eyes narrowed as he went over the rules of their game, trying to figure out if this counted as a win or a loss.

The hero rubbed him again, outlining the shape of his cock with his fingers. The fabric didn’t have much give and he couldn’t fully wrap his hand around him. 

Luthor stayed frozen to the spot as he played with him, quickly hardening in his pants, stretching them even tauter. He winced slightly when Superman’s hand pushed him against a zipper but pressed closer instead of pulling away. The anger bubbling up inside him boiled down to desperation.

Maybe this counted as a tie?

He crossed the imperceptible distance between them and snatched his head in his hands, kissing him violently. Superman allowed himself to enjoy it, the soft flesh of the lips pressing against his own, tasting gin on his tongue. By the time he pulled away Luthor’s eyes lost their sharpness and watched him silently, pleading.

What was he even thinking, this wasn’t any better. He might be in control of the situation now but he was just repeating his previous mistakes and spurring Luthor on. But he’d already started.

He touched him again, none too gently, pressing the zipper into his skin through the layers of his clothes. What started in Luthor’s mouth as a hiss turned into a soft sigh. One of Superman’s hands snaked around his waist and settled low on his back, at the rim of his trousers, and kept him at that optimal distance, close but still far enough to fit his hand between them. His back was tense under his shirt, hard like a marble statue but invitingly warm.

Those green toxic eyes burrowed into his, silently demanding his everything. He turned his head away from that gaze, feeling Luthor’s dick twitch in his hand. It wasn’t a good idea doing this face to face.

Superman had to stop himself from trying to rub his own erection against him or the hand wedged uncomfortably between them. This was the last time. He won’t get his hands dirty or crowd his mind with new memories to haunt him in the night.

Luthor, as usual made things difficult for him. As he thrust into his hand he moaned and his hot breath tickled the shell of his ear, giving him goose bumps. His head was nestled on his shoulder now and he breathed in the scent of his skin, it snaked from his lungs to his heart and spilled into his veins like liquid fire.

He wondered if it didn’t hurt him like this, when he grabbed at him roughly through all the layers, but he couldn’t trust himself with him once his clothes were off. It seemed that Luthor didn’t mind it at all though as he hung on to him, pliant and grateful. His fingers found his chest and started tracing the red S reverently.

His breath was coming out in short gasps now, he was close.

He was pressing himself onto his hand, desperately trying to get more friction. He pushed it backwards until it hit Superman’s cock, the distance between them almost eliminated. The alien gasped slightly, and his hand, up until then resting on Luthor’s back, slid down to his ass and grabbed a palmful of his right cheek, kneading the muscle. He tugged his trousers from two sides now and the seams at the hips started giving in. The pieces of fabric pulled apart, showing droplets of white skin between the black threads.

Luthor moaned again, loudly, tipping over the edge. He came and filled his underwear with his sticky mess as Superman silenced him with his lips, swallowing his sounds. He trailed his ear with one finger, as if to distract him from his other hand that was still feeling him up. When he broke their kiss Luthor almost fell onto his chest, boneless. The man rubbed his face against him like a cuddly kitten. 

His come started slowly seeping through his wet underwear to the fabric of his trousers and the dry cleaners might have some questions, but he couldn’t possible tear away from him sooner than was absolutely necessary. 

Superman seemed to have forgotten all the rules he’d set for himself and spoiled him after the orgasm, landing trail of kisses down the exposed stripe of his neck. He repaid him with sliding one hand down to his crotch. He pulled away a little then, looking at him oddly, so he kissed him again. He sucked his thick meaty lower lip into his mouth and tugged at it with his teeth, chewing on it. 

The man let him for a while but hit the brakes when he felt him cup his erection again, prying him off roughly with one hand on his jaw.

If his lip was anything less than indestructible, he would have torn a good chunk of it off like that but as it stood, he only felt a slight pull. He frowned again, blue eyes shining under his thick eyebrows.

He’d rather fly off with a very uncomfortable hard on than let him get him off again. It worried him how easily he slipped into this role, how it already seemed like he was making a habit of having sex with his enemy.

‘Luthor…‘

His hand rested too close to his mouth and Luthor took his thumb in his mouth, sucking on it teasingly. It took all of Superman’s willpower to push him away when he was still basking in the afterglow, warm and reciprocating for once.

‘It’s a question of time and-‘

‘I won’t let you take the detector.’ Luthor cut him off, voice still soft.

Superman inhaled sharply, anger quickly flaring up.

‘You said-‘ he got interrupted again.

‘The dimensional rift is already closing up, there isn’t much to look at. You should be searching for the thing that came through instead.’

That gave him a pause.

‘There is something on our world now, from another reality?’

Luthor ignored his concern and leaned in again, enjoying his presence while he could.

‘Well, yes. It’s been here for a while, since the war on Apokalips.’ he reached out to brush his hair only to get slapped away. The implications of a worldwide catastrophe in the making seemed to have ruined Superman’s mood entirely.

‘And you couldn’t just open with that instead of haggling over a machine that’s completely useless now?!’

‘Where would be the fun in that?’

Superman turned his back to him, anxious to give his report back as soon as possible, but immediately realised that he still left some things unsaid and grudgingly faced the billionaire again, arms crossed over his chest. He looked at the floor for few moments, trying to shape his thoughts into words. Finally, he looked up and his face was cold and serious.

‘Don’t ask for things like this again.’

Luthor’s heart fell a little, even though he wouldn’t admit it. He expected it would have been something new with how the hero’s cheeks turned pink.

‘So I should give away my technology and information for free now?’ he asked him calmly.

‘No. This… thing… it’s going nowhere. What’s the end goal? Will you just try roping me into sleeping with you until I start loving you back?’

If Luthor took a hit he didn’t let it show. It seemed his mind was occupied with estimating the damage done to his clothes.

‘I’m not that delusional.’ he replied after a while.

‘Then what? You’re not going to change, you’re not going to turn over a new leaf, it’s pointless.’ Superman countered, a little indignant. Luthor shrugged his shoulders. 

‘It feels good and irritates you on top of that. What more could I ask for?’ and it gets me your full attention, he felt tempted to add.

‘You owe me for the trousers, by the way.’

Superman groaned instead of an answer and turned to leave again. 

‘Until next time then, good luck with the ‘crisis’.’

‘There won’t be next time for this.’

Luthor smiled at his back as he took off.

Superman had always been bad at lying, even when he lied to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time skips were had, excuses that might become important later were constructed and Batman might be suspecting something: welcome to our third chapter!  
> I honestly struggled with how much animosity/cordiality to put between them in this chapter, but I think it came out close to the level I wanted (not like I know what I'm doing but yk). And we're also arriving at our first plot twist: Superman doesn't want a casual hookup without feelings involved (or a hookup with a villain at that) while Luthor doesn't want anything serious because feelings are his kryptonite. I might as well stop pretending this series is complete since I do want to add more chapters to get this developing but I'm warning you - I update slow af. 
> 
> Side note: if you have a better idea for a pseudo-scientific doodad than 'sfermion particle disruptor' I'm all ears *never touched a silence in her life*.


	4. Chapter 4

Superman kept himself busy the next few weeks, unable to give up on trying to find their intruder, even though he should have been at least smart enough to figure out that when Luthor hadn’t found him, no one would. He avoided Lextower at all costs, pretending he had more important things to deal with.

Luthor was amused at first, then irritated, before the unease settled in. He ran all the scenarios in his head, he played their last encounters over in his mind numerous times. Superman enjoyed fucking him and it was obvious that he had hard time fighting his new urges, the only thing that was needed now was a stimulus, a catalyst to force them together again.

It was just a matter of time before the Justice League would tire from chasing down the phantom and send him his way, and he’d put on his serious face and ask for another favour, knowing full well that he’d recently changed prizes.

He tried to keep himself out of jail until then, but it only took him few weeks to exhaust all the plans that didn’t include Superman and he was bored to death, getting through day by day only thanks to his routine. 

He was even grateful to give interview to Metropolis Today and delighted when the young journalist they sent him threw herself at him after the sixth question. She told him it was the best sex she ever had and he replied saying he won’t get her promoted and let her storm off.

It almost managed to save that dreadful day.

He stayed splayed on the bed for a while afterwards, watching the city through his floor to ceiling windows, thinking about Superman again. It led to nothing except the usual frustration and he grudgingly stood up to take a shower after a while.

When he walked out of the bathroom with just white towel around his hips he found the hero standing there. He failed to hide his surprise, almost jumping up from the unexpected visit.

Superman seemed just as surprised for some reason, embarrassed even, as if he’d broken into his house on accident this time. Luthor had no idea what he could possibly be doing there, he was extra careful in hiding his illegal research and he knew that the heroes still hadn’t given up on their ‘crisis’.

Then the alien blushed sheepishly and it hit him.

It was during the interview, the woman asked him about his projects and he brought up all the different uses of kryptonite. ‘Kryptonite’, that was all it took to turn Superman’s attention to them and then he was unable to stop listening in on them. He must have thought that he’d planned it out and now he was here, red and all worked up, because he believed that he was begging for his attention. No wonder Superman felt completely idiotic standing here, he realised he misinterpreted the entire thing.

Luthor turned the light off in the bathroom, transforming them into dark shapes highligted red by the last edges of the setting sun poking out above the horizon. He played dumb, which was surprisingly easy even for somebody with his intellect.

‘To what do I owe the pleasure? Did you find something out, digging through my old files?’

Superman looked at his feet without replying.

‘I should give you the entrance code with how much you cost me on repairs every visit.’

‘Don’t bother, I’m leaving.’ He finally managed but Luthor jumped in and grabbed him by the arm to drag his face down for a kiss. He plastered his naked body to him so that he could feel his nipples tickling the skin on his chest through the suit.

‘I think you’re staying.’ He said against his lips, looking into his blue eyes. It seemed he was opening his mouth to protest but he grabbed him by his hair and pulled him into another wet kiss. Superman broke away first, moving his head to the side dismissively. His hot breath touched the tips of Luthor’s ears.

He was going to leave again, after all the wait.

‘Stay.’ Luthor tried again, softer.

‘It’s pointless.’ he sighed helplessly, but seemed unable to tear away from him.

‘Then why did you even come here?’

A grunt, Superman blushed a little, it was a flawless argument. Luthor kissed him again and again, feeling him giving in. He took the risk and touched him through his suit, running his hands down his chest. 

‘We can’t just keep doing this.’ Superman argued weakly, repeating himself. It turned out they could, the kisses kept on coming, hurried and desperate. Luthor’s chest moved against him as he tried to take a breath between the onslaughts, he could feel his heartbeat on his skin. The smell of his shower gel invaded his nostrils, unbearably inviting.

He wanted to pull away, needed to pull away before it was too late but Luthor’s expression made it impossible. He looked at him like a kicked dog might, pained but with unwavering devotion. .

Before he could decide on anything, one of his hands, entirely of its own, creeped around Luthor’s waist, pulling him closer. Another one joined in treacherously. He ran his hands down his back, gently, like comforting a child. 

Luthor knew he’d already won and his face said as much. His eyes turned bright and the corners of his mouth rose up in a victorious smirk, except this time, there was a foreign, earnest joy in it. He almost looked innocent. It sent sparks right down to Superman’s cock as fast as a lightning strike. 

The billionaire suddenly found himself on the velvet sheets in his bed. He noticed his towel was askew now, one side on his hip, the other down on his thigh, showing the root of his dick. When he blinked next, the towel was gone but he didn’t bother looking for it. Superman was propped on his hands and knees above him, naked. He stared at the dark outlines of his muscular body, disbelieving but painfully aroused.

He searched him out in the dark, hands rushing to discover the endless map of skin. His chiselled torso with wide chest and narrow waist, studded with a puzzle of muscles as hard as cobble stones. His legs, strong like two tree trunks. The happy trail of wiry hairs that curled around his fingers as he slid down to his cock. It was like he ate him up with his fingers, with his open palms. He had to swallow the saliva filling his mouth.

Superman let him do what he pleased, savouring his touches, but it was taking too long for his liking. He spread Luthor’s legs impatiently and pried his hands off of him. When he leaned in to kiss him the distance between their bodies disappeared, their chests aligned and their hard erections brushed against each other. They merged into a single white stripe of naked skin on a king sized bed and their shared body heat became almost unbearable.

Luthor felt his weight on him, pressing him into the soft mattress, restricting his every move, his every breath. He was unable to escape the gaze of those two hungry eyes but it somehow seemed easier to bear now. He was unused to having male body pressed against him, no soft curves and heavy breasts but instead unyielding hard angular mass caging him in place. His skin tickled where the coarse hairs from the body above brushed against it. Superman smelled strangely familiar, like ozone and cheap aftershave, but he couldn’t place it.

He wasn’t paying attention during the second or two it took Superman to fetch some lube and spread it on his fingers, desperately trying to solve that little mystery because he knew it’d give him another leverage over the hero. He snapped back into the reality when a finger wormed into his ass, spreading him quickly. Finally, he registered that the suffocating heat of another body on his disappeared. The sweat suddenly felt cool on his skin.

Another finger joined in and worked him fast and rough. Superman’s eyes almost seemed to glow in the dim light, illuminating his unapologetic face. He got him to lift his leg up, bending it at the knee to get better access to his hole. Luthor placed it flat on his chest rather than hooking it around his shoulder, unable to pass up on that little gesture of disrespect. The skin under the sole of his foot was warm, and soft like new-born’s.

While Superman played with him, stretching the pink ring out to suit his needs, he buried his toes in his chest, trying to negotiate with the unyielding skin. He kicked him, hard, straight in the ribs, fascinated with how much abuse the he can take. It jerked the other man backward slightly and the fingers buried inside of him got yanked out up until the first knuckle.

Superman seemed to take it personally.

He pulled his fingers out entirely and swapped his leg off before he thrust himself in in one go, prying his insides apart violently.

Luthor threw his head back and had to bite his lip to stop a whine from escaping, but the soft meat gave in and filled his mouth with blood. He kept his eyes screwed shut, breathing through his nose. His dick spilled precome on his stomach, right where his muscles tightened enough to form a ‘u’ with his belly button in the middle.

A sound finally tore itself from him, a little miserable moan. His insides tightened around that foreign stripe of meat, wrapping themselves around it, tracing it like a mould, somehow managing without tearing. 

Superman was at least kind enough not to move and satisfied himself with watching him take laboured breaths. His entire body seemed to shift around as if to find some place for him inside, his muscles tensed and relaxed, his head moved from right to left. His chest, shiny with sweat made exaggerated movements, caving in and inflating as he breathed.

Another moan. This one seemed stronger, resonating in Superman’s chest and driving his heart wild. Luthor’s furrowed eyebrows screamed pain while his half open mouth translated as pleasure. He wasn’t sure so he leaned in and kissed him slowly and apologetically. He tasted like a mouthful of old pennies. When they separated he moaned into his lips. His legs coiled around his waist and rubbed into his back as they pulled him closer into his tight heat. 

Superman pulled out and made a shallow thrust, feeling the stubborn resistance absent with women, like he was intruding, invading his organs. He rubbed against his prostate as he moved and Luthor’s hips joined in, chasing him out just to usher him back inside, quicker and quicker. 

He responded to him, thrusting in as deep as he could manage, chasing after the heat building in his underbelly. He was certain that Luthor was enjoying himself now, his loud inarticulate moans filled his ears and his nails scratched against his back uselessly. He tried to keep his green eyes opened to watch him, to save the image of that body tied inseparably to him on this rare occasion.

He looked best like this, when the extasy and the heat of a second body thawed him out, made him soft and obedient, almost loving. But it was only for him, Superman knew, he was cold and quiet with the woman.

The woman, he didn’t want to think about her, about her succulent body sweating on him, blending into him. He could smell her parfum on the sheets and it drove him mad.

He struck against Luthor, blind and desperate, bit into his neck and kept his teeth closed around that mouthful of tissue. When it tore a sound out of him, loud and startled, he could feel it thrum in his vocal cords against his lips. His walls squeezed him brutally but he did his best to keep his grip as he fucked him.

Luthor’s whines faded into quiet moans as the pain matured into pleasure. He buried his hands in his curls gratefully and let him stay attached to him at the neck, like a vampire or an overgrown tick.

The hero only sobered up when he tasted blood and spat the mouthful of skin out.

It was too late then. Luthor’s neck already sported a new mark, long zero written in two dotted lines of individual teeth indents. Superman kissed him softly to make up for his sudden outburst, adding fresh blood into his mouth still tasting faintly of copper from when he’d bitten his lip.

Luthor seemed far from upset, grinning at him when they separated.

This was different from the choking marks, it was more like a red signature scratched into him and he wanted to show it off like a new piece of jewellery. It was the proof that tied them together. 

Superman slowed down to a complete stop, a bit shaken that he’d feel possessive over him of all people, and Luthor had to nudge him with his hips to get him to move again. He didn’t need much convincing and returned to his punishing pace almost immediately, but made an effort to keep his mouth glued to his, only bearing to separate for few seconds at a time as if he’d suffocate without stealing his air.

Luthor moaned into their messy wet kisses, oh so happy to be wanted. The fresh bite on his neck throbbed a little with every move, reminding him of its existence. Superman came to him on his own, for himself not the ‘greater good’. They were lovers now. He smiled.

He didn’t think the other man had realised it yet, but he decided to keep it as a secret that’d warm him after his departure. Even now, it lit a fire in his chest that creeped down to his stomach.

Superman didn’t understand that expression, without any hint of malice, like that of a happy child. He wasn’t really in a position to respond to a smile like that, fucking him roughly, and it made him feel ashamed of himself. But Luthor felt so good he couldn’t question his secret smiles longer, all of his thoughts dispersing with every thrust, chased off by the raw pleasure.

He benevolently decided to help Luthor out this time and reached for his wet cock. His insides tightened and wrung him as he jerked him off, leaving his own dick painfully aching for release. He panted into the skin of his neck, over his fresh bite. 

Luthor’s hands were back in his hair. There was no warning before he yanked it roughly as he spilled all over Superman’s hand, breathless. His hole still spasmed around him after the orgasm, sore and used up. The pleasure from the unrelenting deep thrusts seemed stronger and almost too painful for his boneless body now, sending sparks into his spent cock until it was forced to harden again, rising up from his stomach.

As a second orgasm built up in him, his moans came out hoarse with his throat raw from the shouting. They were different, quiet but all the more desperate, sounding almost pained as his exhausted body was made to go on, as the fire travelled down the burned the pathways to his dick again.

Listening to him was too much, it made shivers run down Superman’s back and his cock twitch desperately in its fleshy prison. He stuffed his mouth with his fingers still sticky with come, locking Luthor’s sounds in. The other man wrapped his tongue around the digits, quickly cleaning his own mess off them. Superman’s hand was wet with saliva with some of it escaping past the lips and trickling down into his palm.

He couldn’t stand it anymore, the heat, the insides squashing him mercilessly, Luthor’s messy hungry face. He reached out for him again, tugging him roughly until he came again, maybe too fast, cursing through gritted teeth and kicking his legs. Superman emptied out inside of him as he tightened up with orgasm, almost collapsing onto Luthor’s hot chest.

The entire world seemed to disappear for few blissful seconds and when he came to, his cheek was plastered to the other’s right pectoral with sweat. He breathed out, long and content. Luthor kissed his forehead. He could feel him silently mouthing something against his skin before he kissed him again. His hands caressed his head, his shoulder, a finger trailed down the groove of his spine.

He could guess what Luthor had said. They looked common now, like every other couple coming down from their orgasm in their embrace, like lovers. He chased that thought away, unwilling to let it their moment down, unwilling to let himself get lured into that false security.

Luthor smiled against his skin. He would throw him out when their skin cooled down, when they returned back to their senses, but for now, he was free to stay like this, lying just above his heart, all sweaty and exhausted, not quite regretting anything yet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So glad I managed to finish this before going to sleep. Please excuse any possible mistakes, my eyes are closing on their own.   
> Anyway, this took a while but here we are! Another smut (yay?). It's a mystery how I always manage to make Luthor masochistic but I'm rolling with it at this point. I should maybe expand my tags again?
> 
> Thank you so much for the comments and kudos, they keep me alive!


	5. Chapter 5

Luthor missed Superman so much it was unnatural, counting each second, going through painstaking mental exercises to guess exactly how much Superman wanted him. Their last encounter filled him with bittersweet hope and he lost count of all the times he’d stood facing the windows, exhibiting himself like a mannequin in a shop window.

It only took four meetings to undo the distance they’ve been building for years, to transform Luthor’s controlled obsession into a foreign hungry chimera of an addiction. He fed on anything with a sprinkle of feeling on it, on the hard-earned tenderness, on the exquisite warm satisfaction that lingered in him for days afterwards, purring like a content cat.

His anxiety heightened when the bite on his neck faded. It should have stayed longer, he scratched at it furiously when he’d noticed it closing up, but it didn’t even leave the faintest scar. He only had a single tabloid article speculation on his ‘new feisty partner’ to prove it ever existed.

His neck looked naked and useless without it, abandoned.

It took 19 days and 6 hours before Superman barged in again, surprising him in his office. He couldn’t stay away, he was addicted too, to the new unhinged, almost brutal pleasure that forced itself into his way.

Luthor welcomed him without any of his formulas, too happy to bother keeping up appearances. He let him haul him up on the table and spread him out on the paperwork he’d been working on. The sharp white lights illuminated every detail of the alien’s naked body.

The long fasting seemed to have left him famished and he hurried even more than usual, not giving him enough time to bask in his presence. Luthor clung to him desperately, unable to keep up with him, and gave himself up entirely, letting the thrusts throw him there and back like ocean waves. He loved the helpless face Superman was making, struggling to keep himself in check, to avoid crushing the body underneath him like a glass vase.

The other man finished quickly and laid down on him without pulling out from his overworked hole. He’d finally calmed down and started playing with the other’s ear, bare and defenceless on his bald head. Luthor’s confused erection pressed against his stomach, unable to react to the inhumanly fast thrusts.

The doors creaked open without a single warning.

Both of them froze just as they were, naked and tied together with last droplets of semen still trickling down into the labyrinth of Luthor’s insides.

At first Mercy didn’t seem anyhow surprised with the scene but then she recognised Superman towering above the body of her boss and her hand shot to her gun. The bullet hit empty air and burrowed into a concrete wall before she could even process the look on Superman’s face, the shamefaced look of a child caught doing some of the ‘bad things’.

The threat was gone.

‘Sir, sir are you-‘

‘You fucking imbecile!’ Luthor roared instantly, throwing himself off the table, red in the face with anger.

‘Couldn’t you knock first!’ he walked over to the door angrily, ignoring how his cock swung around with every step, unconstrained by underwear. He would look ridiculous if it wasn’t for the fact that his fury was terrible and unpredictable, even when it came to her, and she fought to stop herself from shaking.

Still, she had no idea what had happened, all the dots in her head seemed isolated from one another. Was the alien under his control? Under the influence of some new kryptonite? Or was it Luthor who was forced to go with his every wish?

When he threw a Chinese vase to her feet she only flinched slightly.

‘I wasn’t informed that we’d have Superman for a visit and that we were supposed to treat him as a guest.’ she said, as professional as ever. The little porcelain shards embedded in her feet brought her back to reality.

‘You said I was to immediately report to you if we get any news on the Outsider.’

Now he paused with his hands around a crystal decanter that was to be the next victim of his bad mood.

‘And we did?’

‘Just now sir, but I heard you were with a company so I waited outside until-‘

It seemed she was forgiven for chasing away the alien, for now. The wrinkles of Luthor’s forehead evened out and his grimace smoothed out into his usual calculating expression. He walked to his chair and settled down on it, still in his birthday suit. 

‘Tell me everything.’ he asked finally, laying the decanter down on his desk with a sigh.

She did, in minute detail, and he seeped the information right in, immediately giving out new orders. It was the breakthrough he’d been waiting for but he still had no concrete leads, no news about the villains he recruited.

It wasn’t worth cutting his precious time with Superman short.

When Mercy left him, running off to fill her new errands or just nurse her feet, he put on his clothes and walked over to the window, almost by habit.

He silently prayed the interruption hadn’t chased him off for good, that the shame at being found out wouldn’t be just the push needed for him to go through the withdrawal.

Superman didn’t want to come back, refused to even as much as look at the Lextower. He was still digesting the horrible moment when they got caught together and so far it’s only given him a stomach-ache.

He’d always tried to live as his pa told him, to never do anything he’d be ashamed of, but when his eyes met Mercy’s he realised how wrong it all went. He was ashamed that he wanted sex this bad, that he was always so violent and selfish during it without really meaning to, that it felt best with Luthor of all the people, that he was sleeping with a man at all. He’d never been this ashamed in his life. The only good thing about it was that it redeemed Luthor in his eyes, which he hadn’t thought possible. It seemed like all he’d known of him was just the thick metal box wrapped in barbed wire that protected a second, different person inside of him, one that sent him loving smiles through one bulletproof window. He was dying to meet him formally.

His body, meanwhile, couldn’t care less about Luthor’s inner self and just craved his surface with an ever growing intensity. The want made his skin crawl after few days and he caught himself thinking ‘just one more time’, or ‘the harm is already done anyway’ but then Mercy’s face resurfaced in his memory and his yearning crawled away to the back of his head like a beaten dog.

Six days after the fiasco in his office he had a dream about Luthor, about his prefect body quivering underneath him, about fingers in his hair and a pair of green eyes grinning at him.

He woke up sweaty, aroused and desperate. 

It was around four in the morning but Luthor was startled awake just by the sound of somebody’s footsteps in his bedroom. One of his hands reached out for the gun under his pillow and another one for the table lamp. Somebody stopped them both, gently brushing his arm.

Luthor sat up, still dazed from his sleep and a little confused.

‘Somehow I didn’t think you’d be sleeping.’ Superman said instead of an excuse, knowing he’ll calm down hearing his voice. He didn’t want him to think that he was having an assassin over at this time of night.

Luthor fell back on the bed almost immediately, now that there was no pressing danger. He felt the bed tip under the weight of a second person even though he couldn’t see him. To the alien’s eyes, there was no difference between the day and night, he could see the self-satisfied smile grow on his face. He was welcome, even this late. He tried to kiss the smile off his mouth but without success.

It seemed Luthor went to bed late because he could still taste the peppermint of his toothpaste. He shivered when Superman yanked the blanket off his body and moved closer to where he was sitting on the bed, craving warmth. The arousal from their proximity didn’t rush through him, didn’t whip him into frenzy like it seemed to do before. His eyes were still glued together and heavy-lidded, and his body was stiff from sleep.

The alien, however, was wide awake and impatient. He let his hands loose on him and they crossed every inch of his skin like a blind man watching a statue. He squeezed the muscles of his upper arm, dug his fingers into his thighs, feeling the weight and the mass of the body beneath him. Luthor’s skin was clammy and almost feverishly warm from his sleep and he refused to move, still drowsy, but instead let himself get nudged along, pliant as wet clay.

Superman’s head swam with all the things he wanted to do to him.

It might have been because of the dark that gave the impression that everything was permitted, but he couldn’t calm himself down. There were pangs of this sudden need to have him, to tear off his outer layers, touch under his skin, turn him inside out and completely surround himself with him, blend into him. It was impossible to reason with, impossible to cut out those thoughts that spread like cancer, love mutated into something dark and possessive, beyond recognition.

He ended their kiss with a bite and yanked his head to the side to suck on his neck, just where the scar should have been. The body underneath him was completely at his mercy. He licked the cartilage of his ear, trailing the curves with his tongue and pushing the tip into his ear canal. Luthor jerked away then, just slightly. Cold shiver ran down his back, his green eyes flew wide open, and his lips parted in a short gasp.

Superman took it as an invitation to kiss him again, turning his bald head to get access to each and every nook of his mouth, sliding his tongue down his, as deep into him as he could. When he pulled away their lips were connected by a thing string of saliva. Luthor cut it, slowly licking his bruised lip. The other man brought his hand to his face and touched his mouth with the tips of his fingers, feeling his stomach inadvertently tighten with arousal.

His fingertips trailed his upper lip from one corner to the other before sliding down to the lower lip. The mouth opened up and kissed the crown of his pointer finger. The portcullis of his white teeth rose up and let him slide in up until to the third knuckle. When sucking on his finger he pressed it up against his hard palate, letting him feel the hard bone above and the soft protrusions of the taste buds of his tongue bellow. His lips were closed around it in a perfect circle, cheeks hollow. Superman’s dick twitched in his pants at the sight, painfully neglected.

He pushed a second finger in and a third followed almost immediately. It was crammed now, the teeth were pressing against his skin. Luthor let him thrust them in and out of his mouth, letting him prolong the sweet anticipation. He slid his hand into his mouth as far as he could get, nails scratching at the back of Luthor’s throat and the fingers spreading his lips to the side. His tongue tried to push him out, hot and velvety where it pressed against his skin. Finally, he got tired of feeling his way around and pulled the digits out slowly. Luthor’s body now mirrored his own, tense with impatience, with his erection stretching the front of his pants. His pyjamas looked expensive which might be why he let out an annoyed hiss when Superman wiped the saliva off his hand on them. The fabric felt like silk.

The bed shifted again. The alien grabbed Luthor’s legs just above the knees and pulled him away from the headboard, to the centre of the bed. He almost yanked his pants off in his eagerness to get his erection out and into the haven of his mouth.

He froze. He’d only just realised that he’d flown over without his uniform, only in his pyjamas, Clark Kent’s pyjamas. If somebody found out... His dick throbbed again impatiently, reminding him of his more immediate problem.

Luthor was left lying in the dark, straining his ears to catch the quiet breaths of the second person in the room over the beating of his speeding heart. He could feel him moving, the mattress dipped. A pair of hands propped his head on a thick pillow and then moved to his face, caressing his cheeks apologetically. Superman’s knees were now on either side of his chest, almost on the level of his armpits. There was something warm hovering above his face, it brushed against his lips shyly, soft and salty. Luthor didn’t need to tax his brilliant mind to figure out that he was asked to suck Superman off and his tongue flicked out, barely touching the tip. The second lick was longer, leaving a wet stripe across the taut skin of the head. 

He parted his lips and let him push his erection inside, flattening his tongue under it. Superman didn’t leave off halfway and slowly fed him his entire length with his head pinned down. He struggled to catch a breath around the column of meat filling his throat. It was harder swallowing like this too, not to mention lying down. His nose was full of the smell of his skin and the rough pubic hair tickled him. 

The one hand that still cradled his face brushed his forehead before moving over to his scalp to comfort him and it calmed his breathing, his heartbeat even. Luthor’s one free hand found the thick thigh above him, wrapping around it. He felt cotton underneath his fingers instead of the foreign indestructible fabric, Superman was so out of it he flew over to him like a civilian and it made warmth pool into Luthor’s chest.

The alien pulled his dick out of the hot furnace of his mouth slowly, giving him few moments to relax before he slammed it back in with surprising force until it hit the back of his throat. The hand around his thigh grasped at his skin roughly. He pulled own and thrust in again and again, astounded that he didn’t meet with any resistance.

Luthor made his breath stutter with how he pressed his tongue against him, eyes half-lidded. He always closed his mouth a little when he swallowed and Superman loved the pressure of his teeth closing around him with each thrust. He dared to up the pace, to thrust into him like he’d thrust into his own hand. Luthor’s eyes fluttered open then, wide from the shock, irises almost entirely eaten up by his dilated pupils as they tried to see through the darkness. He couldn’t move his head, it was held in place by one of the alien’s hands, gentle but firm, but the rest of his body squirmed as it took in the strength of his thrusts. He gripped Superman’s thighs so hard his knuckles turned white. The front of his pants darkened as it soaked in his precome. 

The other man moaned and gasped, bent over him, back a perfect round arch. The muscles of his giant body tensed so hard they quivered until he needed to reach out to prop himself on the headboard with one arm. Another violent tremor slid down his body. It was so good. He regretted that he couldn’t press all of Luthor’s hot body against him, couldn’t hear him moan in reply. It was just his own noises, amplified by the darkness. He bit his lips to keep himself quiet and tasted blood almost immediately.

He didn’t want to know what he’d do to Mercy if she walked in on them now.

Luthor’s mouth made vulgar squelching sounds as he trust into it, there were wet trails of saliva running down his chin. He submitted to his brutal thrusts completely, the whites of his eyes showing from time to time.

Superman slowed down a little but didn’t manage to stave off the wave of exquisite heat that coursed through him. He came with teeth sunk into his bottom lip, pounding into him until the heat completely dissipated. There was a bizarre gurgling as Luthor tried to spit some come out around his cock, not quite managing to swallow all of him with his mouth already full of his own saliva. He pulled out his wet softening dick and laid back on the bed, right next to him. Luthor’s chin was all wet and his attempts to lick the mess off amounted to nothing so he cleaned up the mixture of saliva and semen with his sleeve.

He enjoyed the last seconds of his bliss, snuggled next to him, until the unmistakable sound of skin on skin filled the quiet of the room. Luthor was jerking himself off. Superman watched him for a while, but it didn’t seem sufficient to just let him do what he’d have done even without him around.

The man let out a little annoyed groan when his hands were pried off and his protests died only when one of Superman’s own replaced his, sneaking into his thin pants to rub his hard weeping cock. The alien ran his second free hand down his body, slowly now that he’s had his fill, trying to give something back. He hit nipples in his exploration and he rubbed them through the thin velvet pyjamas. Luthor’s face warmed up a little when he felt his mouth on him, sucking at his chest like a hungry child. The fabric didn’t taste like anything but he could feel the buds hardening on his tongue. He squeezed them with his teeth, enjoying the short gasp that came in reply, but didn’t bite down and just held them in place as he played with them with his tongue. When he finally pulled away, he left the hard nipples outlined by the fabric, wet and dark with his saliva.

He moved on, forcing his head way under his shirt to lick at his flat stomach, tongue lapping at his belly button, salty with sweat. Luthor almost tore him away before his mouth could trail any lower, yanking him by his hair.

He snaked his hands around his neck and kissed him slowly, savouring the feeling of his mouth on his, the simple gesture. Superman could taste himself but didn’t hate it that much. Luthor touched one hand to his lips when they separated and it found his lower lip, bitten through. He carried his bloodied fingers back to his mouth and licked them off diligently. He was happy to find that the alien blood, close to impossible to obtain, was sweeter than the human one. His chin was still impossibly messy and it ran down his neck.

You’re a mess, Lex.’ Superman smiled fondly, knowing too well he wouldn’t see it in the dark. When Luthor’s face coloured at that remark he was left staring at him dumbly, not quite sure how he’d achieved such a feat. He touched his hot cheeks and the older man averted his eyes.

He finally realised what he’d said. At that time, it seemed like the most natural thing to call him by his first name, it suited this new Luthor better. ~~~~

He leaned closer to whisper into his ear, wide eyed and curious.

‘Lex.’ the effect was immediate.

Luthor tensed up again like he’d been hit and his erection twitched in the alien’s hand. He returned his gaze now, face deep red, but his look was hard and suspecting. Having this influence over him with just a single word was intoxicating, it felt like with ‘Lex’ he could get away with doing everything ‘Luthor’ hated. A singular idea emerged in his mind, loud and unrelenting.

‘Say it again Lex.’ he started in a gentle voice, feeling his heart quickening in anticipation.

‘Tell me you love me.’

Another shock for Luthor. He tried to pull away from him, hating that low honeyed voice which made him shiver with dark delight, hating the fact that the words were lining up on his tongue already.

‘You know I do.’ he forced himself to reply instead, using all his force to push those words through his teeth. His voice was barely audible.

‘Say it again.’ Superman insisted as he trailed kisses down his cheek, onto the soft skin under his chin. He suddenly felt he couldn’t go on without it, without that reassurance.

‘Lex…’ he breathed out, like a plea, before sealing his lips with his. The hand on his cock was still jerking him off slowly, perhaps too slow, the pleasure trickled in by drops, steadily growing.

Luthor hung onto him like a lost child, desperately trying to stop his tremors. He could feel his body against him, a reassuring weight chasing off the cold of the night. He touched his infuriatingly perfect face, buried his hands in the curls of his black hair.

‘I love you…’ he whispered against his lips. It felt like it was almost wrenched from him and felt the impulse to hit him again just to hide how weak and defenceless he was. He hoped this would be the end of it, he had nothing else to offer, no other inner-most secrets or weaknesses to exploit, he’d been robbed of all of them.

He felt Superman smile against his skin as he was pulled in closer onto his hard chest, his voice brushed against his ear.

‘A lot?’ he pushed on, spurred on by the lack of any violent reaction.

He upped his pace to make it easier for him, to make him lose his inhibitions. Luthor’s sounds picked up too, changing from quick breathing and the occasional sigh into moans. Still, he refused to answer, but despite or maybe because of it, Superman suddenly felt like he wanted to know everything, like uncovering the secret of his impossible attraction would help him see through the metal box inside of him. His eyes lit up bright red in the dark, like demon’s, and radiated intense searing heat.

‘More than everyone you’ve ever loved before?’ he threw in another question impatiently.

It took Luthor longer than usual to process the sentence, lost in the pleasure as he was with his back arched like a bow, and all the muscles of his chest and stomach hard and taut. He let out a little groan, fighting with the growing pressure in his crotch, spurred on by the increasingly fast movements of his hand. He looked Superman in the eye and his lips shifted into a crooked self-pitying smile.

‘I’ve- never… loved anyone be-fore.’ he managed between his moans. There was a naked sincerity in his voice that left Superman breathless. Something shifted in his chest, like a great hungry beast.

‘Then you’re only mine, Lex.’

That sentence, said completely without thinking, managed to catch Luthor off guard again, and his only reply was a little whine at the back of his throat. Superman now as good as owned him while he didn’t even now his true name, still, it made the heat rise to his skin. He grasped at him even tighter, gritting his teeth because he knew once he opened his mouth it’d be only to beg him to keep him, to stay with him, and he still liked to think he had a shred of dignity left. Instead he let out a string of low sounds, squirming under him like a fish on a hook. He could see Superman’s glowing eyes laughing in the dark. The alien took pity on him and bit him on his neck in the same spot, sinking his teeth into his skin with savage satisfaction.

It was the first time that Luthor came quietly, his entire face contorted with pain and concentration as he fought to keep his mouth closed. Satisfied and deflated, he laid his head down on Superman’s shoulder, all the tension had left his muscles and his fatigue returned, weighing down his eyelids.

He woke up few minutes later when the alien left but only rolled over to the other side and continued sleeping. When he finally got up at nine in the morning, gross and sticky, his brain was overflowing with the memories of the night.

He tried to force himself to think about something else, anything else. and took out the heavy double-headed coin from his secret drawer, forcing himself to analyse it again, to run his eyes over the latin inscription, oderint dum metuant. He read it time and time again but couldn’t think of anything. His head was full of Superman’s voice as it tirelessly repeated that one sentence.

_You’re only mine, Lex_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you ask (or more like because you wouldn't ask), yes, I am actually stealing plot points from that one event in the DC comics, but I'm not really following it all that diligently.  
> Anyway, I'm sorry that this took me so long but to be honest I have like a bucketful of things I should be doing instead if I wanna graduate so the time I can spend on this, even though it's by far the most entertaining thing to do, is pretty limited. The following chapters, too, will be late af so I apologise beforehand. And while we're on the subject of apologising, I'm sorry for all the typos and straight up grammar mistakes, English isn't my first language.  
> Edit: did I seriously leave (?) in this? Good grief! Nvm, it's fixed now. 
> 
> And if you've gotten this far, thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

He rolled over on the bed. The adrenalin was wearing off quickly and he started feeling some of his new bruises.

‘What do you mean?’ it was a question addressed to the other man lying next to him.

‘If I can stay here.’ Superman repeated himself, slower this time. Luthor stood up without a word, throwing his new bathrobe around himself.

‘Just for an hour or two.’

‘No.’ he finally answered, back turned to him. When the hero stood up as well he quickly left the room. He was followed.

‘Why not?’

‘Why yes?’

Superman sighed, running a hand down his own sweaty face as he thought of an answer.

‘I was thinking that… this could be more than sex…’ he grimaced a little, it sounded ridiculous even to him but... he thought about Luthor as he’d seen him the last time, sleeping peacefully on his bed, limbs entwined with his. Wondered what ‘Lex’ was really like. 

Luthor didn’t seem to share his curiosity.

‘What? An excursion into my laboratories?’ he guessed, eyes suddenly cold. Superman refused to give up that easily.

‘A normal relationship, not some of your convoluted games.’

It earned him a suspicious look. Luthor stared him down, eyes dangerously narrowed.

‘What would you have me do, recite my favourite colours and meet your dead parents?’ Superman didn’t even blink and just stood in front of him as he was, completely naked.

‘For example.’

Luthor groaned.

‘You’re just wasting your time here.’

‘We’ll see.’

He still ended up going but the idea didn’t leave him. Few days later, he was ready for another experiment.

He barged into the Lextower as usual, through the door to the roof that was always left open. He knew Mercy had just set off so it was only him and Luthor in the penthouse. He found him seated at the dining table with dirty dishes from the dinner still in place.

Luthor smiled when he saw him and shot up from his chair only for Superman to walk past him into the kitchen.

‘I’ll take tea first, or coffee.’ he announced, trying to sound casual. He could feel him glaring daggers into his back. He already understood that Superman planned to play difficult this evening.

‘This isn’t a cafeteria.’

‘Where do you keep your teabags?’ he ignored the retort and went on invading his room, opening up all the possible drawers and cupboards until he finally saw them.

‘Oh, there.’

Luthor reached the boiling point.

‘Stop fucking around. This is my house you don’t have any-’

‘Should I leave then?’ Superman turned to him, completely calm and collected. It felt like he’d just dumped a bucket of cold water on him and Luthor was left gritting his teeth. No, he didn’t want him to leave because it could be a week before they’d have sex again, but he didn’t want to play house with him either. Not to mention that if he gave in this time, it’d only get worse.

‘What will you have?’ if the alien expected a reply, he was disappointed.

‘Green tea.’ he replied to himself.

‘How much sugar?’ now he leaned in as if to hear his answer better. None came.

‘Alright, without sugar.’ he decided. Finally, he filled two cups with boiling water and brought them to the dining room. He offered one to Luthor.

‘There you go, be careful it’s still hot.’ the smile froze on his lips as he felt the hot water splash his face. Luthor emptied the entire mug on him in one graceful motion. Steam rose from Superman’s head and shoulders, very visible against the dark background of the kitchen. His expression was completely blank, betraying no signs of what he’d do next. He set his full cup down on the table and turned his eyes to the other one.

‘Could you hand me the cup?’ he asked, voice perfectly controlled.

Luthor swallowed nervously, already dreading getting hit over the head with it, but handed it over. Contrary to his expectation, the cup was gently laid down on the edge of table right next to the first one.

Superman looked into his eyes now, lips one thin angry line, and threw him on the table, ignoring the plates lined up there. Some of them slid down to the floor and broke with a sharp painful sound.

Luthor could finally stop worrying, he knew this situation all too well.

‘Finally.’ he whispered to himself. Superman might be winning the war but he’d lost this battle, no more tea parties for him.

He tore his pants down and took him just like he did during their first time, face down on the table. He tried to take it out on him and went slow, because he knew how badly Luthor handled it. He got so frustrated he thrashed underneath him, arms beating the table. The remaining dishes gave soft clinks as they hopped up and down under the blows until Superman caught his arms in one hand and kept them behind his back, stretching his shoulder and back muscles painfully.

He kept him tethering on the edge for full eternity, huffing against the smooth dark wood of the table, taking turns cursing and blessing him. His wrists were raw where they brushed against each other and the hand holding them as he kept on struggling. This time, Superman didn’t bite the side of his neck or even over his jugular, but grabbed the skin on the back of his neck in his teeth and pulled it, just like a cat carrying its young. Luthor came with a shout, spraying his semen over the expensive table. Soon enough, he felt his insides fill up as Superman collapsed against him, inadvertently forcing his stomach down into the puddle of his own mess.

He thought he heard him whisper his name, the little magic word, but he couldn’t be sure. He felt his hot breath on the skin of his back and it gave him goose bumps. When he pulled out Luthor stayed as he was, splayed over the table, exhausted. He froze when he heard something scrape against the tabletop and slowly lifted his head.

Superman was sitting on his table, drinking his cold tea. When he saw him looking he smiled at him just like he smiled for the cameras, warm and radiant. He caressed his scalp gently before his fingers moved to trace the bite on his nape, soft and appreciative.

Luthor forced himself to stand up and sat on the edge of table, mirroring his position. He was too spent to get angry with him and the other man saw it. His only hope was that this wasn’t part of Superman’s plan, that he didn’t get played. One of the alien’s arm slowly rose up and wound up around his side, pulling him closer. He obediently leaned into him, laying his head down on his shoulder.

He couldn’t remember ever seeing him drink before, he wondered if he really needed to. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed and few drops of clear liquid slid down the corner of his lips. The everyday scene managed to look completely surreal.

Superman caught his eyes. That smile again.

‘You look like you could use a drink Lex.’ he said the word again and Luthor wasn’t still fully immune to it, shivering with silent delight. It sounded so alien coming out of Superman’s mouth. Nobody dared to call him Lex, at least not to his face.

He should tell him to go fuck himself, but his lips really did feel parched and his throat was dry from shouting. The cup moved closer to his mouth, incredibly tempting. He thought about the circle of Superman’s lips closing around the glazed rim and ended up taking a sip. The teabag was still plastered to the insides of the cup making the tea a bit too bitter. The drink was refreshingly cold as it rolled over in his mouth but as it went down it felt oddly warm. He could feel Superman watching him with a wide smile, holding his breath as if not to startle him, excited like a child after the wild kitten he’d brought home had finally let him pet it without hissing. 

Luthor let out a sigh.

He couldn’t tell if it was loss or draw.

They saw each other sooner than either of them planned, even if Luthor didn’t know it. He went to him as Clark Kent this time, forced to tag along with Lois on an interview for the Daily Planet.

They were supposed to approach him as an authority on dimensional anomalies and get his opinion on the tears in the multiverse barrier that opened up last Tuesday, same as the ones that appeared almost a year before. In reality, it quickly turned into an interrogation into the questionable tactics of Lexcorp, just as it always did when Lois became involved. That’s why Perry sent him along, to keep them on the subject, but that’d require paying attention to the conversation.

He couldn’t keep his focus, all the sounds faded away into the smooth melody of Luthor’s voice, all the space shrunk up to contain just his form, and he could smell nothing except his luxurious cologne, the one that he could smell on himself every time he came home from fucking him. He loved how his suit hugged his wide chest, loved how all of his movements were so fluent and graceful, how he radiated authority and self-confidence. He was so different to when they were alone together, so self-assured, in complete control of the situation. It flattered him so much that only he knew Lex, that he was the only one in the whole world he’d ever loved.

He struggled to hide his hard-on, but both Lois and Luthor were thankfully too busy arguing to notice. It was scary that he didn’t even mind him lying as blatantly as he did.

Lois brandished her new proves and he made them all void with the single wave of his hand and then came the arrogant smirk, because nobody could ever rival Lex Luthor, with a single exception. He could see the edge of the bite mark poking out above his collar every time he turned his head and felt a surge of pride. He itched to just reach out and touch him and his mind revved with half-concocted schemes how to get him alone, maybe when he went to the bathroom, and take him there. Luthor could suck him off again, he did it so well.

He let out an odd quiet noise, almost like a mewl, painfully aroused, and the two sets of eyes turned to him. He turned bright red and pretended to cough. They filed him under downright weird and moved on with their interview, or rather interrogation.

Kent only caught snippets of the conversation, keeping his eyes on Luthor, chest hot like melting iron. Seeing Mercy walk into the room cooled him down a little and brought him back to reality. He stood completely still, hoping she wouldn’t look his way. Luthor didn’t recognise him like this but he was scared of her gaze for some reason. She pulled Luthor to the side with a quick apology.

‘Could you believe that?’ Lois asked, exasperated. Clark had no idea what she was talking about so he just shrugged his shoulders. She didn’t expect anything else out of him anyway. He could see the full circle of the bite as Luthor was standing with his back turned to him. He had to force himself not to smile, feeling all warm and giddy inside. Then he overheard the conversation and the feeling disappeared. His arousal too, ceased to be an issue.

‘Black Manta joined the Society today.’ Mercy started, speaking in a whisper. Luthor acknowledged the news with a nod.

‘And Bane, still undecided?’

‘Yes, but the Outsider promised him Gotham.’

‘Well, I expected as much. Anything else?‘

‘Our source talked about something called Pandora box-… sir?’ Luthor seemed almost impressed now.

‘I wondered what they’d use to reopen the portal. Things are moving along, that’s good. Keep me updated.’

‘Yes sir.’

He returned, his best polite smile plastered on his face.

‘I’m sorry about that, but I have quite a company to run. Where were we?’

Lois just shrugged and went on with the questioning, but Luthor wasn’t looking at her now. Kent had an expression he hadn’t seen on him before, eyes wild and angry, teeth gritted so hard he could see the muscles on his jaw pop up with effort. He looked like he desperately fought to stop himself from jumping up and throttling him, it reminded him of someone.

For the first time in months Superman lost the common decency to enter through doors and flew in through his window while he was sitting at his lunch. His meal got sprinkled with glass shards but he did his best to be polite.

‘Did you forget where the doors were?’

‘Did you forget to tell me you know the identity of the intruder and that he’s the thing opening up the rift again?!’ the other man spat out immediately. He had trouble controlling his anger, eyes blazing red.

Luthor chewed slowly, trying to appear nonchalant while he ran through all the ways the hero might have suddenly found out. There was only the interview today which means that…

‘It skipped my mind.’ he smiled slowly. He still had to investigate it but the more he thought about it, the higher the probability rose.

‘Where is he?!’

‘Who?’ he asked innocently.

‘The Outsider! The thing that came through!’ Superman hit the table and it snapped in two as easy as a toothpick, collapsing down to the floor.

‘I can’t say.’ he yanked him up from the chair and hissed ‘You will say.’ into his face. It felt like his eyebrows might catch fire from the unbelievable heat of his eyes.

‘Why would I just throw away my advantage.’

‘Advantage?! He’s opening up a portal to some foreign dimension, the Earth could get run over tomorrow if we don’t stop it!’ Superman stared at him disbelievingly, once again reminded how skewed the priorities of his lover were.

Luthor only lifted brow at that catastrophic scenario.

‘Then what are you still doing here? Run looking for him.’

‘The last time we dealt with an invasion thousands of people died!’ the hero tried again, feeling the frustration bite at him from every side, making him unable to stay still.

‘And Lexcorp earned milliards from public contracts.’ the other man reminded him, matter-of-factly.

‘You fucki- Just tell me! Tell me! Please…’ he bared his anger, his desperation, it gushed from him in a steady stream, but Luthor somehow still stayed indifferent.

‘All of this ruckus even though you don’t know anything about it. It could be an invasion of chairs from the fifth dimension for all you heroes know.’

‘Would it be anything good if the criminals started organising, if you kept tabs on it?’

‘That’s not a bad deduction.’ he smiled at him, apparently enjoying him squirm. He wasn’t going to help, the thought made Superman’s chest heavy with panic. 

‘The villains are overtaking the prisons, the death toll is rising and you really just… going to sit here and wait for it to hit?!’

‘I could lie down.’ another smirk. He was mocking him now.

‘You’ll kill so many people just because-‘

‘And?’

‘How can you be so selfish to-‘

That seemed to be the only thing to get to him because his tone heated up angrily.

‘I’ve been your cock sleeve for months and now you’re calling me selfish?’

‘YOU convinced me three hundred people would die if I don’t suck you off because you think you love me which must mean something else in your head because I slept with you every other week and you just tripled the amount of kryptonite in your bedside drawer. You’re insecure, arrogant, paranoid, vindictive, narcissistic and you NEVER EVER think about anybody except yourself.’ it burst out from him quite unexpectedly and made even Luthor take a step back.

Superman sighed, forcing himself to calm down. Suddenly, it felt like he had too much to say.

‘I thought… I thought I was changing you for the better, that you’d just join the Justice League an-’ he started softly, poking at the tender feelings in his heart until they felt like bruises. Luthor interrupted him, face twisted with anger.

‘Are you hearing yourself?! Justice League?! Have you gone insane or was the sex really that good?’

‘I thought I was in love with you.’

The reply, spoken so calmly, made him speechless. He scrutinised Superman’s serene expression, looked into his blue eyes and grew more and more confused when he couldn’t find any hint of deceit.

The other man spoke up again.

‘If you don’t tell me where the outsider is then it was really pointless from the start and I’m giving up on you. No more negotiations, no more random visits, no more sex. I’ll never come back here again.’

Luthor swallowed, forcing the lump in his throat down into his stomach. It felt like his chest was caught in a steel vice tightening with each second, but there was one more thing he had to try, the ace up in his sleeve.

‘And I’ll just tell the world you’re Clark Kent.’

Good, he guessed right, the dismayed expression on his face told him everything. He was powerless against him now, he had to do everything he wished for, no matter his ridiculous mission. That was all it took to release all the tension from his body. He allowed himself to think ahead, to imagine them together, went as far as to imagine taking Superman. When he spoke up again, he was smiling.

‘Go solve your crisis, I’ll see you tonight-‘

‘Then tell them. Just tell everybody.’ the quiet whisper made all his plans quake and crumble from foundations up. Superman’s face was cold and resigned. He had to avert his eyes when he looked at him like this.

‘The thought of staying with you makes me sick.’ again, the quiet voice, it shook a little this time. Luthor felt his eyes burn.

‘I won’t give you the location.’ he replied to the floor. He balled his hands into fists and dug his nails into his palms just to fight the urge to reach out for him, to keep him there without anything in return.

‘Then goodbye, Luthor, do as you will.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there we have... Superman wanting to get serious with Lex, Superman prompting tea drinking, Superman being horny and... Superman breaking up with Lex. That's a lot for one chapter!  
> Next up, the crisis finally hits, because this will get worse before it can get better!
> 
> Hope you guys are okay even with most of the world freaking out these past few months and that this chap will manage to cheer you up a little (she says while writing angst)!


	7. Chapter 7

‘Step out of your car.’

The two people at the front seats of the van shrugged their shoulders. One nervously typed out a message to their employer while the other glanced back to their companions sitting in the back, armed to the teeth.

Superman, floating just above the car, furrowed his forehead. His eyes went red.

‘Now.’ it was more of a growl than a polite request but it was effective. The mercenaries grudgingly got out, opening up the doors to the back. The entire party lined up in front of the car, giving him annoyed looks. They didn’t have much choice since they were without kryptonite.

He looked them over. Bullet proof vests, submachine guns, sniper rifles, tear gas canisters, all topped off by small green ‘L’ stitched to the shoulder of their black uniforms. 

‘Thank you.’ one corner of his mouth rose up at those words but it was far from a smile. He picked up the van as easily as if it was made out of paper, hoisting it up into the air, and watched their eyes widen. He brought it back down slowly, nose first, and pressed it into the ground. The metal wrinkled and broke, one wheel popped off, pebbles of safety glass piled down on the grass bellow. He crushed the car like a soda can until it was as long as wide with the remaining three wheels in the air.

When he touched down next to the group, they jerked away nervously. He did better job at smiling this time, because he had a reason to.

‘The nearest bus stop is two kilometres down this road. You’ll have to change buses in Shefield but it’s straight to Metropolis after that.’

No response, they just dumbly stared at him.

He heard the doors of the house open up and sure enough, Martha Kent came running out, eyes wide with panic.

‘Good day.’ he turned his back to them and went to comfort her before she had a better chance to take a look at the situation.

‘You’re safe, madam, I’ll lead you back inside.’ she stared up at him disbelievingly but obediently followed him when he hooked her arm with his. She was quiet until the doors to their house shut closed behind them.

‘That’s… that was… what were you thinking Clark…?’ she breathed out, voice strained.

‘Are you alright? How long have they been here?’ he asked instead.

‘What were you thinking?! You can’t just make a scene like this. I told you, I saw the logos, and if Luthor figures out-‘

‘He already did, ma, that’s… that’s why he sent them here.’ he was too guilty to look her in the eyes.

She was silent for a while, watching him.

‘Are you sure that-‘

‘Yes.’

She took a sharp breath.

‘Were they here to kill me?’ her hands shook a little then. Superman gritted his teeth.

‘They were here just to scare us.’

She shook her head in disbelief.

‘He knows where you live. He could just… he could just kill you while you sleep.’ she thought aloud, feeling the terror choke her again. Superman put his arms around her, shaking with too many useless emotions.

‘No, no he won’t. He’d need me awake so that he could brag to me about it.’

‘What have you done?’ she whispered softly and it hurt like a fist to the stomach.

‘I… I’m sorry… I didn’t know I could even be like that… and do those things… it was a mess from the start… I was just the person you and pa didn’t want me to be. I’m so sorry.’ he pressed himself against her, hiding his face in her shoulder as if he was still a scared child. 

‘Clark, whatever you’ve done, I’m sure it’s not a bad thing, because you aren’t capable of doing any of those-’

His guilty expression disagreed.

‘Ma, I was-‘ she was still looking at him. He just couldn’t continue like this, couldn’t tell her that Luthor could kill her anytime he felt like punishing him for leaving him. He’d have to tell her what they did to each other and he already felt disgusted with himself just by existing in his childhood home like this.

He kept quiet. 

‘Don’t make that face. What is it, what’s happened…?’

‘I’ll… I’ll just tell you later-‘ she gave him the look.

‘I promise I will. But for now you just have to trust me that I’ll be okay, and you’ll be okay.’ his voice was calm this time.

‘I know, I… what will you do now?‘

He was opening his mouth to reply when he felt an odd sensation at the back of his head letting him know that Martian Manhunter reached out to him. He heard his voice, loud and clear.

_‘We found him.’_

‘Clark…?’ he met her concerned gaze, his expression must have changed after hearing the news.

‘What happened?’ she pushed again when he pulled away from her. He was nervous, itching to go as fast as possible before Outsider disappears again, but that also meant leaving her here after dropping all of it on her.

‘I need to go, it’s League business.’ he sighed.

‘I’m sorry that I’m leaving, now is really-‘

‘You’ve already saved me, just go, we can talk later. Promise me you’ll be careful.’ she somehow managed to give him a warm encouraging smile, despite everything that had just gone wrong. It felt like she’d lifted some weight from his shoulders.

‘I will. I love you ma.’

He hugged her again, quickly, before he disappeared.

‘I’m glad to have you here Clark.’ Flash was the first one to acknowledge his presence while the others barely turned their heads to him.

‘Why aren’t we moving in?’ he asked as his eyes darted around the circle of tense faces of the other Justice League members. Batman’s frown seemed even deeper than usual.

‘It’s a trap, we should just stay where we are. He’s already opened the portal yesterday, we have no idea what we’re getting into.’

‘We’d still have to take it on eventually, whatever it is.’ Wonder Woman interjected, arms crossed over her chest. Aquaman nodded.

‘I agree with Diana, Outsider is too good at hiding from us, if we don’t get him now we won’t find him again.’

‘The villains are going crazy, me and Barry have been working our asses off locking them up again but it’s useless, nobody’s just staying in prison.’ Green Lantern added, gesturing at Flash.

‘There’s just no end to that unless we take him out.’ the other superhero agreed. Martian Manhunter and Cyborg both seemed to share that idea. Batman turned to Superman, hoping at least he’d be more reasonable.

‘Clark?’ his answer didn’t please him either.

‘We couldn’t do anything about the Outsider until now, but we can’t afford not to act when we have him right here.’

‘Guys.’ Green Lantern muttered nervously, looking across the field they were standing on. A lone figure was approaching.

‘It’s a man, he’s unarmed.’ Superman declared immediately.

‘It looks like Outsider got tired of waiting for us.’ Wonder woman noted.

Other figures emerged just behind him, impossible to recognise at the distance.

‘What are they Clark?’ Batman asked, reaching for his batarangs.

‘That’s… that’s us.’

‘…violence is escalating in Gotham following the prison break from Arkham Asylum. There have been 6 dead and 45 injured since yesterday and the Gotham city police department is urging everyone to stay inside their homes. Commissioner Gordon said in his speech before the-‘

The screen blinked and the image suddenly changed from Gotham streets to the footage from a field. There was about a hundred villains pressed together in one spot with just a few meters separating them from a group of people that looked like superheroes, judging from the costumes.

Luthor turned his head around when he heard that the news reporter stopped mid-sentence and he was left staring at the screen in disbelief. He hadn’t changed the program.

The camera zoomed in on Superman floating right in the middle of the superheroes, except this wasn’t Superman, it couldn’t be. His suit had a big ‘U’ at the front and his eyes seemed darker. When he smiled, it felt like a twisted parody of how his Superman smiled, like there was a different person wearing his skin.

Luthor felt chill run down his spine, but moved closer to the television.

The fake-Superman spoke up.

‘To the people all over the globe listening to this: we are the Crime Syndicate, you let us in, and now your world is ours. From now on there are no governments, there’s only the Syndicate, there are no laws except the law of the strongest. Steal, rape, murder, take everything you want.’

The criminals gave a deafening cheer. The camera moved, showing the rest of the Crime Syndicate in one neat line, with razor blade smiles of people that were all in on the same sadistic joke.

The announcement continued.

‘Try hard and we might just take you with us when we leave this world. Anybody else will die together with this planet.’

That was the punchline. The shouts died out, giving way to confused silence. It seemed the crowd needed some time to process all of it.

A woman from the Syndicate broke out laughing. The rest was having a hard time fighting back the urge to cackle at the sea of dumbstruck faces.

‘If anybody objects to any of it, they’ll die.’ another Syndicate member added, smiling wildly.

Murmurs, at first hardly audible, picked up in volume as the convicts argued with one another. There was only one solution they could think of off the top of their heads and they shouted it over one another with frantic urgency. The Justice League.

The Syndicate exchanged amused looks.

Mercy chose that exact moment to run into the room, all sweaty and concerned.

‘Sir, all the tv stations have-‘

‘SHUT UP!’ Luthor couldn’t pry his eyes off the scene in front of him.

The Superman from an alternate Earth spoke up again, savouring each word.

‘Your Justice League was dealt with.’ 

Mercy’s gasp mirrored all the sounds from the criminals herded together. Luthor just stared at the screen, unblinking.

‘There’s no proof…’ he found himself whispering as the crowd on the television exploded in uproar. 

A movement from the Syndicate. They threw something on the ground and the people bellow tripped over their feet just to get away from it as fast as possible. The lasso of truth. A trident flew into the crowd next, giving off a metallic ring as it bounced off the ground and incited another round of panicked shouting.

They threw a red cape next. It hovered in the air for a second before it sunk down to the ground. 

It was as if an impossible weight settled on Luthor’s chest, threatening to break through his ribcage. He couldn’t breathe. It felt like he was going to be sick.

The footage cut off there and a message appeared on the screen in big blocky letters, THIS WORLD IS OURS.

He knew Mercy was standing right next to him, he could hear her quick breathing in the silence of the room, could feel her eyes on him, silently asking what to do. He had no idea what to tell her.

He didn’t even get the time to think it over before there was the sudden ear splittingly loud alarm he’d installed for emergencies and he almost threw himself at the nearest screen.

Mercy stood with her gun out, eyes darting over all the entrances to the room.

‘Are they coming here?’ she shouted over the alarm as a lone bead of sweat rolled down her face. Luthor’s zipped through all the warnings and updates from the various Lexcorp satelittes and his eyes shot wide with disbelief.

‘It’s a proximity alert.’ he ran out of the room before he even finished the sentence and she had no choice but to follow him blindly down the corridors. She got over the first shock and ran as fast as she could. Whatever it was, it had to be urgent for Luthor to ran to take cover this fast.

‘We’re running down to the shelter?’ she guessed. His wild expression gave her the goose bumps.

‘Into the lab, I need to get to my suit.’ he explained, running out of breath.

‘What’s going to crush into the building? What’s happening?‘ she shouted, getting frustrated.

‘The Watchtower’s falling down on Metropolis.’

He finally opened his eyes after what felt like a long nap. The world was out of focus and ran over with shadows jumping left and right. A familiar face forced itself into his vision.

‘Bruce…’ his voice sounded all wrong.

‘Where are we… is everyone okay…?’

‘We can’t get anywhere like this-’ there was somebody shouting next to him. He didn’t recognise the voice.

‘I’m not leaving him here!’

Batman was still quiet. He looked like a demon with his mask, now that he saw him blurry.

‘Did Cyborg get us out…?’ he asked again, desperately trying to remember what had happened. He only recalled his own face staring down at him with a grin. He moved his head and his vision swam. Then there was pain, pain all over his chest, raw and unbearable, forcing a sob out of him.

‘Yes, but don’t move.’ finally, an answer, it calmed him down a little. Batman’s voice was strong and unwavering, reliable.

‘Where is he?’

Did he even hear him? His voice sounded so quiet even to his own ears. The pain wasn’t letting up and it raked its claws all over him. There were more voices now, shouting. Battle, there was a big battle. He was fighting too… he remembered the sound, a wet sickening crunch resonating through him. He couldn’t lift his head to look down at his body. It felt like there was some of him missing.

Batman’s face disappeared and got replaced by Green Lantern’s. Then he saw both of them, lips moving without a sound. Batman leaned in again, watching him intently.

‘There’s… there’s something on my chest…’

‘We’re gonna die if we stay here!’ another voice. Were they losing? He couldn’t get up. He felt too dizzy and couldn’t force himself awake, it felt like he’d drift off to sleep again. His eyelids were too heavy.

‘What… what’s happening…? Is everyone alright?’ he repeated himself anxiously.

Batman looked quite tired as he watched him like this.

‘You’re dying, Clark.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that this took so long but incredibly enough, I still have exams during the mess that's the quarantine (ugh).  
> But hey, at least I finally delivered on the crisis? If you feel like we're moving at 500 miles per hour, it's just because we are.   
> I just needed an excuse to set the world on fire, it seems.   
> Also please ignore the mess that's my Justice League - I know the roster doesn't make sense.   
> Anyway, huge thank you for all the kudos and comments, it's what keeps me writing this!


	8. Chapter 8

When he came to he was lying on his back under solar lamps in what looked like a laboratory. He was on a bed right next to an operating table. He could still pick up some microscopic spots of black dried blood on the metal desk and in the joints between the tiles on the floor, but the room looked reasonably clean and his sensitive nose picked up all the different disinfectants. The blanket thrown over him was white and clean too. There were tubes coming out from underneath it on both sides of his body, connected to IV drip and various machines, some of which he’s never seen before. He could even see a screen with an overview of his functions. It got livelier as he was waking up and beeped happily. Enough to attract the attention of somebody who, at least going by the medical coat, was taking care of him here.

The person hurried over, checked the screen, the machines, and finally looked at him. 

‘…Luthor…?’ Clark breathed out, surprised. He was the last person he’d expect.

‘You’re awake.’ he stated, tracing every line of his face with his eyes. He looked worse than the last time he’d seen him, there was a gash on the side of his head and his eyes were bloodshot with heavy bags hanging under them.

‘Don’t get up.’ he pushed down on his shoulder gently to get his point across. Clark stopped trying to sit up. The pain gushing from his chest got stronger when he moved anyway.

‘Where is everyone? What about the Syndicate?’ he asked the first questions that floated up to the surface, trying to find any clues in his hazy memory. It was useless, only the punch to the chest from his lookalike, people shouting all around and worried faces of his teammates. Some blurry scenes from the battle. That was it.

‘It was dealt with. They’re alright. How’s the pain?’ Luthor’s voice sounded hoarse, like he hadn’t spoken a word for too long or just the opposite, tried to shout over the sound of waves. It was disquieting to listen to him like that.

‘It’s… it’s waking up.’ sharp pain spread around his chest every time he took a breath. It seemed like it was yet again one of those times when his archenemy decided to swoop into the battle to save him, except now his motivations seemed less baffling then before. 

‘When it gets unbearable, tell me and I’ll up the dosage. I have to be careful because I don’t know how your body reacts to analgesics and I can’t risk overdosing you.’ he heaved a tired sigh, touching his head.

‘I’m used to getting by without them…’ most of the drugs didn’t work on him, Kryptonian physiology could be cruel. He turned his head around, careful not to lift his shoulders because that caused agony even with whatever drugs he had flowing through his system.

‘Where am I?’

‘In the Lextower, the lower floors are still stable.’ Luthor touched his head again, like it needed to be nudged into its proper place every few seconds or it’d fall off. He looked preoccupied as he studied the monitors.

‘Stable? What happened? Was there an attack?’ his tense expression told him that that was one that slipped by. It took him longer than usual to think up a reply, he was still nursing his head in his hands. Superman didn’t want to imagine the headache he had, he had never seen him this out of it before.

‘There was another assassination attempt on me, bomb in the lobby.’ as he spoke he wrinkled his forehead in concentration.

‘Are you lying to me?’ Luthor seemed too tired to argue and simply shrugged his shoulders, he had to admit it was a pretty bad lie.

‘N- don’t get up.’ Clark made another attempt to sit up but the pain was so horrible he collapsed back on the bed before Luthor even finished the sentence. The white blanket slid down with that quick movement and exposed the wound in his chest. There was a wide circle in the middle of it where the skin was a mess of purple bruises and wide stretch marks, the occasional tears in the skin stitched together. There were two long incisions left open around the diameter of his chest. When he leaned down he could see the red of his living tissues and the cuts were held open by the tubes coming in and out of them that connected to the machinery on the sides of his bed.

‘I need to keep your chest open in case your heart starts growing back and interfering with the functions of the pump. Some of the tubes are there just temporarily, I’ll remove the suction tube tomorrow, your lung should have re-expanded by then, but it’ll take a while before we get to anything more permanent for your heart that’d get you out of the bed.’ 

He felt bile rise to his throat just from looking at it. All the blood drained from his face leaving his as white as a sheet. Luthor carefully stepped in and pulled the blanket up over it again. He watched his reaction, tense and anxious. Clark shivered slightly, silent from the shock. It took him few minutes to find his voice again all while Luthor looked into his face with a new, pitying look.

‘I don’t… have a heart anymore…’ he finally managed, voice weak and quiet. The other man winced visibly and grasped his head again.

‘I had to replace most of it… but it’s not as bad as it looked when you had your chest caved in. Your regeneration is the bigger issue. I couldn’t glue your shattered sternum together and had to replace parts of it to help it hold up the chest but I might have to take it all out once it starts regrowing or your tissue would grow over implants and push them out… Maybe your heart won’t grow back but the new heart I’m designing should work even as you’re regenerating and contract enough to let you grow your new heart around it… theoretically… it’d occupy most of your right ventricle but it shouldn’t… that’s the problem… I’ll deal with that if it happens… somehow… You’ll be… whole again… soon enough…’ he started out strong but lost his confidence under his gaze, stumbling over his words and lowering his voice until he trailed off completely.

Superman tried to understand what he was saying but it was hard to concentrate between the pain and the nausea from the state his body was in. He mostly took in the tone of his voice, how his expression darkened with worry when he reminded himself of all the possible complications. It seemed Luthor noticed his pained expression because he felt forced to add new encouragements without any of his usual eloquence.

‘It… it’s good… You’ll be fine.’ he suddenly stretched his hand out and laid it on top of his head, as if unsure how to comfort him before he moved to combing his fingers through his hair like he was used to doing. He brushed against the side of his face once or twice, caressing his cheek. It felt nice enough and distracted him from the pain. He couldn’t stand the thought of him just hours before but he was grateful for any sort of comfort now.

‘Thank you for saving my life.’ he made sure to look him in the eyes as he said that because his voice felt too weak to carry his real meaning across. Luthor fidgeted a little, obviously uncomfortable, and looked away from him. His eyes were moist.

‘You look tired.’ Clark tried, a bit confused by that reaction. Luthor shook his head and turned his back to him.

‘No, it’s nothing.’

‘It sounds like a long operation…’ another attempt. He shook his head again. From where Superman was lying he could see him reach one hand to his eyes. Was he crying? He couldn’t even begin to imagine that, it seemed like something completely alien.

‘Did it take long for me to wake up?’ he started out in his softest tone. Luthor’s shoulders were shaking but he didn’t make a single sound. it hurt to watch him like this, even though Clark knew he’d hurt enough people to deserve it. He breathed out and reached out to tug at his lab coat despite the hot pain shooting up from his arm straight into his butchered chest. Luthor felt it, heard the bed creak and his head snapped back in alarm, almost by instinct. His eyes were red and there was a wet trail down one of his cheek, but the rest of his face stayed cold and expressionless.

‘I told you not to move around.’

‘Lex… I’m sorry…’ Superman breathed out, feeling guilt stifling him. The guilt of making somebody suffer because of his carelessness and maybe guilt at leaving him alone and breaking up wit - no, Luthor was still as much villain as he was before. He sent mercenaries with machine guns to his mother. He couldn’t reform somebody like him.

There was a tear rolling out of his left eye and he turned his face away so he couldn’t see him cry.

‘Lex…’

‘Don’t be angry with me again.’ his voice was unusually quiet. Clark looked at him in disbelief.

‘Why? What for?’ a sharp intake of breath.

‘When… Syndicate took over Grid got into the Watchtower and… turned off its thrusters… it was calculated to hit the centre of Metropolis…’

Clark could have sworn that whatever it was that counted as his heart now had skipped a beat.

‘How… how many people are…?’

He couldn’t see his face when he had his back turned to him again but his entire body tensed up, readying itself for his reaction to the bad news.

‘They’re still looking for the bodies but… two maybe three hundred thousand…’ Superman gasped, eyes shot wide open. Three thousand people died. No, three thousand they know about so far. An avalanche of corpses of men, women and children who died praying for someone, anyone, to save them.

‘Most of it is from the fires…’ Luthor added as if that were important right now. The bed creaked again.

‘I told you not to get up.’ he turned around, genuinely worried about his condition. Clark’s expression stopped him from continuing. He looked completely devastated. He grit his teeth as hard as he could but his lower lip was shaking and his face was twitching uncontrollably. 

‘I… was supposed to be there… I was supposed to help those people!’ he whispered, unable to process it. He had hoisted himself up on his arms, face red with effort, ignoring the pain until Luthor shoved him back to the bed, none too gently, and held him there. It was good that he wasn’t still up to his usual strength.

‘You were supposed to be dead so don’t GET UP.’ He hissed, narrowing his wet eyes. When he felt how Clark still struggled to fight against him and get out of the bed, his expression softened a little.

‘Just don’t, please.’ he added, taking on an entirely new gentle tone. Clark looked him in the eyes. He’d never heard him say ‘please’.

‘This is your fault. If you’d just told me before or took care of the Outsider yourself none of this would have happened.’ he pressed on cruelly. Luthor held his gaze.

‘I’ll make up for it.’ that was a new one. It’d almost be laughable if he didn’t look like he was still holding back tears.

‘And how would you go about making up for killing quarter million people exactly?!’ Superman had trouble holding back his anger now, digging his fingers into the palms of his hands.

‘Wasn’t catastrophe prevention your job?’ Luthor retorted, slowly returning to his usual self.

‘I failed all those people and I’ll do my best to make up just for a fraction of that until the day I die but you… you don’t care about any of them, you only regret it now because it means I have one more reason not to sleep with you anymore even if you threaten my mother!’

‘And? Even if I did good things for selfish reasons they’d still be good.’ he didn’t even bother denying it.

‘You can’t do good. You don’t know what that is.’ Clark spat out, furious. His chest tightened up and it hurt so much it was almost unbearable. Luthor flared his nostrils, feeling the anger spread to him but he refused to act on it now, the image of Superman bleeding on his operation table, completely motionless, was still too fresh in his mind. No, he needed to play good and keep him here for as long as possible, watch over him as he recovered before the other heroes dragged him off. He wouldn’t be able to stand it if they left with him and he’d know nothing about him until he’d re-emerge on the news, smiling and seemingly unscathed. Not this time, not when he had to bring him back from the death’s doors. He gritted his teeth and walked away from the bed.

‘You seem to be doing well so I’ll go take a nap. I suppose I might be tired.’ he declared, refusing to look back at his surprised expression.

The doors to the lab opened before he even gave the command.

Batman gave him his best suspicious look before he walked past him into the room. 

‘It’s alright, I’ll look after him. I’ll call on you if his state changes.’ he dismissed him coldly. Luthor gave him his best annoyed glare, gritting his teeth. Letting that creep see him with his eyes still red was the last thing he wanted but at least Superman seemed happy to see him. He didn’t want to leave the two of them here alone but it didn’t look like he had a choice. He just shrugged his shoulders and walked out into the corridor. Batman’s eyes followed him until the doors slid closed.

‘Bruce.’ Clark smiled, feeling like an enormous weight has just been lifted from his shoulders.

Batman seemed to smile back, walking to him.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘It’s… I’m fine…’ his everything hurt and it felt like he could really use upping of the dosage but he was alive.

‘I’m sorry I dragged you down.’ he quickly added.

‘Don’t be ridiculous-‘

‘Is everyone alright?’ Bruce’s expression changed and his frown was deeper than his default.

‘…Cyborg… lost all his enhancements but his father’s working on him. Nightwing still hasn’t woken up but his condition is stable… the rest only have few broken bones but there are… civilian casualties…’

‘I know… Metropolis was… How many are there now? Two hundred thousand or-‘

‘Half a million is the tamest guess so far, there’s too many services working all at once and they each got their own numbers. We’re running out of places to store the bodies.’ Luthor really couldn’t tell him the truth, not even once. He gripped his bedsheets tightly. He felt a gloved hand on his shoulder.

‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘It was obviously a trap, what were we even thinking coming there. If I l just listened to you… If Luthor just told me where he was before the portal even opened…!’

’None of us could have known it’d turn out like this. We can’t change anything about it now, we just need to save as many people as we can. And you need to rest.’

‘Here, in the Lextower?’ he raised one eyebrow, looking over the laboratory again.

‘We don’t really have any better place to be. We’re using it as our temporary base now that Watchtower’s gone and Luthor’s letting us stay. At any rate I wouldn’t risk moving you right now.’

‘ _This_ is our temporary base?’

‘Things have changed since Luthor helped us against the Syndicate. The public loves him again, more than us.’ that made Superman pause. He turned to Batman with his best questioning look.

‘He and the rest of the villains he brought along killed off most of the Syndicate.’ it seemed like it hurt to admit it.

‘They… saved us and then left us alone, when they were in the best position to kill us off?’ Clark asked in disbelief. 

‘For some reason, yes. Most of them crawled back into their dens as soon as it was over. It seems like they’re just… depending on our existence.’ Bruce gave him a long look, furrowing his brows.

‘Luthor almost lost it when he found you. He quit everything to get you here and operated on you for eight hours. I don’t think he even slept in the last two days. We were all worried about you but he… refused to think about anything else.’

‘He was-‘ Clark barely opened his mouth and got interrupted.

‘I’m not telling you this to get you to trust him. It doesn’t mean anything, he’s still the same as he always was. Don’t get close to him. He’s obsessed with you and you don’t want to give him any ideas. He’s capable of anything at this rate.’

He bit his lip. This was no place to laugh at that irony.

‘I know Bruce.’

Something must have shown on his face because Batman narrowed his eyes in suspicion but decided it wouldn’t be the best time to press him about it in his state. Telling him about the Metropolis disaster was enough of a shock. He’ll have that discussion after he’s recovered, under the lasso of truth if he had to.

‘Just leave him to me, I’ll deal with it. You should only focus on getting better now.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This feels like an incredibly short chapter but if I were to wait until I stretched it out to sufficient length i'd never publish it. All the deadlines from uni have been kicking my butt but it finally seems like I got a little bit of breathing space for now so I'll try to get on with the next chapter.   
> So, there you have it, my take on the Forever Evil arc. In case you're not familiar with it, it's the one where Outsider ends up on Earth and opens a portal (Pandora box) to set Syndicate (evil versions of Justice League) on Earth. They kicked JL's butt and Luthor had to assemble his team of villains, save the heroes and ultimately save Superman's life (yes, that was all canon). Superman originally had a sliver of kryptonite in his brain but I gave him the punch Ultraman finished Bizarro off with, because I'm just nice like that. I didn't want to spend time with the characters I haven't properly introduced and just brushed most of the action off cause I wanted to focus on the Clex. If you're familiar with Forever Evil you know what you can look forward to in the next chap, I won't spoil it for the rest of you.
> 
> Anyway, we're moving towards a hundred kudos-yesss! So once again thank you so much if you've stuck with me from the start despite my terrible terrible update schedule or even if you've just come across this fic and decided to give this a try.


	9. Chapter 9

‘How are you feeling today? Better?’ Diana sat down at the edge of his bed with a smile, watching the three men already occupying the room. Clark shifted a little where he was sitting cross legged on the bed and moved his horse on the chessboard with a frown. Barry was winning again.

‘I feel amazing. I’m still on medication but I can already move around and do pretty much anything.’ he replied after a while.

‘Except win at chess.’ Hal noted teasingly, watching their game.

‘I could have a game with you, see who’s better.’

‘No thanks.’

‘Did you bring in junk food again?’ Diana sighed, spotting the plastic bag stuffed with paper cups and food wrappers and the half eaten burger on the bedside table.

‘Just a bit. It improves his mood which improves the rate he’s healing at. It beats any side effects.’ Barry defended himself. Most of those hamburgers were his anyway.

‘Yeah, Barry, you know dr. Luthor prescribed him a kryptonite diet, what’s wrong with you?’ Hal chimed in jokingly. It was his ideal to stop by a fast food joint on their way back and Barry jabbed him in the shoulder for it. 

‘It’s the last one, I promise.’ Clark looked Diana in the eye, smiling a little.

‘Better make it count. I got no idea what Bruce’s gonna feed you.’

‘I still think it’s better idea to move to the fortress of solitude instead of the batcave…’

‘We’ve talked about that Clark. It’s not safe to just let people in there, even if it’s us. With the amount of technology you have there, the phantom zone portal, the Coluan-‘

‘I know, I know.’ he sighed. Still, the fortress had more room, even though it was less accessible.

‘We’ve already moved everything there.’ Diana added.

‘Not like there was much to move since most of it burned in the atmosphere.’

‘Rest in peace, ping pong table for four.’ Hal joined Barry.

‘We need to move. Anything is better than relying on Luthor’s hospitality.’ nobody could argue with Diana on that.

‘Yeah, I got no idea what he’s planning this time. I’d have footed it by now but it’s not like we can leave you alone with him.’

‘I know Hal. But we won’t be staying here long now.’

‘Did you tell him yet?’ Barry asked, making Clark frown.

‘No, not exactly.’

‘He’s gonna flip.’ Hal added helpfully.

It was the first time Luthor managed to look at Superman’s naked muscular chest and actually frown.

‘Tell me if it hurts.’ he ordered, brows furrowed in concentration, and started feeling his chest, poking his ribs.

‘It doesn’t.’

‘Here?’ a poke between his chest muscles.

‘A bit.’

‘You might be a little sore but all your ribs grew back correctly. I was a little worried about the sternum but after the last operation, it’s growing nicely, even though it might still sting for a while. How’s the pain?’ Luthor stopped the check-up and looked him in the eyes.

‘It’s alright when I’m moving. It just hurts a little when I hit my chest but the painkillers are working.’

‘Good. Just keep doing what I’ve said. Don’t put pressure on it, don’t lie down on your stomach or carry heavy loads, don’t overexert yourself. Maybe you could go back to exercising after two weeks.’

‘Alright.’ Clark nodded. It seemed like he was done with the check-up so he started put on his suit again, after three weeks.

‘Why are you changing?’ he didn’t need to look up at Luthor to know what kind of face he was making. His icy tone was enough to guess.

‘I wanted to tell you yesterday but I figured it’d be easier like this. Thank you for everything, but I’m walking out of here.’ he was done putting on his suit and got up. Luthor’s hand immediately flew to his chest before he thought better of it and grabbed him by the shoulder instead.

‘You aren’t.’ his green eyes were dangerously narrowed. He grit his teeth so hard it was almost audible.

‘I’m recovering faster than anyone expected, I’m getting my strength back-‘

‘You’re alive only thanks to my invention pumping the blood around your body. If your heart grows back-‘

‘It hasn’t this entire time. My ribs did, my pectorals and lungs did. It didn’t even move.’ Clark interrupted him quickly. Luthor just crossed his arms over his chest. 

‘I still need you here for observation! If anything goes wrong you’ll die in minutes. Even if I bring you back again I can’t say how many of your brain cells would die without oxygen, the chances it’d still be yo-.’

‘I know. But that doesn’t mean I have to stop saving people. With my abilities I have the duty to-’

‘Are you suicidal?! I just told you not to overexert yourself! I went through all of trouble just to keep you alive for a while longer and you- you owe it to me to stay here and stay down!’ he somehow barely managed to stop himself from shouting but the volume of his voice jumped up. Clark took a deep breath and pushed him out of his way.

‘Thank you, but I’m leaving.’

It’s been a while since he’s seen Luthor look at him like that, full of hate. He didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but there was nothing that could make him change his mind. They’d only end up arguing at this point. With a sigh, he opened the doors and stepped into the hallway. He heard something break even before they closed. Then the noises kept coming, through the wall he could see chairs flying through the air. Luthor was trashing his lab.

Clark winced at each new noise, debating whether he shouldn’t return and stay at least a single day more after all. Batman chose the perfect moment to sneak up on him. He jumped up when he felt him lay one hand on his back.

‘Bruce-‘ he hissed, high-strung.

‘You don’t need to worry about him. Are you moving already?’

‘Yes, I’m just… I just need to pick up few things and then I’m good to go…’

‘Hm.’ he was still maintaining eye contact.

‘Do you need my help with something?’

‘Yes. I do.’

Mercy found Luthor up in the living room, nursing a glass of whiskey and staring out of the windows. She stopped few metres away from him, quickly recognising that he was in one of his bad moods.

‘What is it?!’ he groaned, taking another sip of the alcohol. She looked at her long list of updates.

‘The Kord industries finally agreed to the partnership with Lexcorp under the conditions you set two weeks ago.’

‘Hm.’ he took another sip. The news didn’t exactly break him out of his apathy. It didn’t seem like she was about to receive any instructions regarding to that.

‘The mayor of Metropolis wants to reward you with a medal for your heroism in the handling of the Metropolis disaster and the Syndicate crisis.’

‘What’s next? Are they naming a bank after Snart?’

Mercy didn’t dare to guess what answer he expected, because she knew she’d have the glass flying at her with the slightest misstep, so she moved on instead.

‘Our stock is at all-time high.’

‘Our stock is rising every year.’ his expression still hasn’t changed for the better. If anything, he seemed even more annoyed now. Mercy took a step back and continued.

‘Your popularity across all age groups has jumped up too. Metropolis Today called you ‘the real hero’ in their new article.’

Luthor seemed ready to let out another groan when some idea slid into place inside his head and he seemed to come alive again.

‘A hero…?’ he repeated carefully, just in case he misheard her.

‘The media hasn’t stopped mentioning you once in those weeks. You were there for the people when the League failed, you’re their hero now.’ she pushed on, visibly relieved.

‘Mercy…’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Whatever happened to our self-sustaining space station project?’ she blinked a few times, surprised. It took her a while to process the sudden change in topic.

‘The NASA pulled the funding and it never took off.’

‘But we had a functional prototype that just needed some finishing touches, didn’t it? Wasn’t Stephenson in charge of it? Call him over.’ he continued, setting down his glass. Mercy quickly checked the schedule on her phone.

‘I can put him to 11am on Tuesday.’

‘It needs to be today. Put him on the plane right now.’ he ordered and immediately got up, brimming with new energy.

There was only one answer to that. 

‘Of course sir.’

‘Everyone seems to have settled in here, I’m glad.’ Clark smiled when he set his things down in the batcave. He had already visited it multiple times but it still made him uneasy. It was too dark and damp to feel comfortable.

‘Yes.’ Batman seemed a little more tense than usual which was a lot. He sat down at his computer and immediately started clicking away.

‘Where’s the thing you needed my help with? Is it something new about the portals?’ Clark moved to stand right next to him, feeling more nervous by the minute.

‘I thought I’d look into something that’s been bothering me for a few months now. I have some evidence, but I don’t quite know what to make of it yet.’ even his voice seemed colder.

‘I mean, I don’t know if I’ll be of any use-‘ Batman interrupted him immediately, showing an old photo on the screen.

‘Is this you flying to Lextower at 4am as a civilian?’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my defence, the chapter is better short because cliffhangers. The next one should be proper length again.


	10. Chapter 10

‘Is this you flying to Lextower at 4am as a civilian?’

Superman froze with his eyes peeled open, unable to get a single word out. He felt chill run down his spine even as beads of sweat popped on his hot forehead. It felt like he was going to be sick.

‘Bruce… I, I can explain that…’ he croaked out finally. The cold stare his friend was giving him broke his every coherent thought. He felt like a child explaining their first shameful thoughts to their parents. Batman turned away from him to his computer.

‘What about these?’ he asked dryly. There were more photos now, with time stamps.

‘Since June last year you visited Lextower at least once a month. Then it turned to once every two weeks and right before the Metropolis disaster it escalated to almost every week.’

This wasn’t Batman catching him in an embarrassing situation. This was him making it his goal to note down every single instance he’d gotten his dick wet. It was mortifying, especially when he remembered what he’d been doing in front of the windows of the penthouse once inside.

‘Where did you even find them? Did you hack into a satellite? Or was it the helicopters flying above the city? Or did you set your your own cameras to spy on me?’ he crossed his arms over his chest, matching his glare.

‘Just answer me. Is that you?’

‘Who else would it be. Yes, Bruce, that’s me every single time.’ he let out a loud groan.

‘Did you betray us?’

‘What?’

‘Did you give Luthor information about the League?’ Clark blinked a few times, staring at him incredulously. He was supposed to be the detective on the team.

‘Wh- of course not!’

‘The entrance codes to the Watcht-‘

‘We both now Grid used Cyborg’s codes! It’s the virus from his system what else would it use?! You’re… you’re getting ridiculous!’

‘Ridiculous? More ridiculous than hurrying to visit your own supervillain?’

‘I know! I know! And it was a mistake, I have nothing to do with Luthor anymore-‘

‘So you did spy for him-‘ there was a resounding crack as the concrete under Superman’s feet broke when he did his best not to grab the other hero and shake him until he started making sense again.

‘NO! Bruce! I was… I was sleeping with him.’ the thing that’s been eating at him for months made its way past its teeth and out into the open and Batman didn’t even look fazed. 

‘Is that so?’ he asked slowly. He was going to drive Clark mad at this rate.

‘Just look at all those photos! Why would I even lie about something like that!’

‘I don’t know yet, but when we stayed month in Lextower-’

‘Yes! I tried to get myself killed just to drag you there as a part of Luthor’s nefarious plan! Listen to me! I never wanted to tell you but I was with him and that didn’t change anything! It was just a bad idea and it’s over now! Is it finally good enough as an explanation?!’ he spat out at him in a rapid succession, suffocating under all of his growing frustrations.

Single ‘hm’ came as the only reply. Batman turned his attention to the monitor and zoomed in one photo to check the details.

‘You’re ridiculous! I should leave before I can sell him the entrance codes to the cave, shouldn’t I?! Or maybe I already did!’ Clark shouted at his back and flew out of there, almost knocking down Wonder woman, on her way to the control room.

‘Well, that seemed like an interesting discussion.’ she sighed when she finally reached the monitor. 

‘What have you done this time Bruce…’

‘Can we talk?’ he recognised the voice even from kilometres away. Wonder woman was flying after him.

‘I don’t think now’s a good time, Diana.’ he sighed but slowed down a little.

‘I know. But just for a few minutes?’ she called after him, catching up somewhere above Kansas. Clark landed on a water tower, resigned to his fate.

‘He told you.’ Diana sat down right next to him.

‘Only because I wanted to know what he needed my lasso for.’

‘So it’s a lasso now?!’ he couldn’t hide the bitterness in his voice.

‘He’s having a hard time… He’s just trying to understand how we could let that all happen.’

‘By blaming it on me.’

‘He’ll drop it soon, he’s only so hung up on it because it’s what he wants to believe in. Is it true? What he told me back there?’ she asked, wasting no time. He hunched his back, trying to fold in on himself. Today was a horrible day.

‘What happened?’ she asked, lips one thin line.

‘Do you remember the false alarm at the Lexcorp laboratory last year?’

‘When you broke Luthor’s hand?’ she supplied easily.

‘I didn’t, but yes, that one. I thought he was going to kill all those people and he… offered a trade for… for some things…’ he hung his head down, unable to meet her eyes.

‘Oh gods, Clark…’ she touched his back, voice taut. 

‘No, don’t… don’t make that face. I’m fine.’ her expression seemed to disagree with him but she didn’t push it, instead continuing with his narrative.

‘And you didn’t need the codes at all.’

‘No. I was furious… and somehow it didn’t seem like such a… step… after that- what he did… and he didn’t stop me… It just seemed too easy, with me in control of everything for once…’ the corners of her mouth sunk even lower but she motioned for him to go on.

‘He told me that… that he loved me after that I… It made no sense… I don’t think he-he realised he was thinking out loud… he got angry and punched me in the face so hard he broke his own fingers…’ it wasn’t getting any easier but he had to continue when he’s already started it. She nodded as he talked, more for herself because Superman still kept his eyes locked on the fields bellow them.

‘I didn’t want to repeat that ever again but then Bruce sent me for the Dark Matter Fluctuation Detector. And I did. And again, and again. Because it… it felt good for some twisted reason. Luthor was just laughing at me for it. But there were times when he was completely different… he seemed harmless and… and happy, he looked really happy. He was still a handful but I just thought… he changed, or that he would change… for me. And then he just shrugged his shoulders and let all those people die… because he didn’t get any profit with them alive. Just because he was curious how bad it’d get.’ he let out a long sigh. He didn’t feel any better confessing this, only more stupid. When he looked back at Diana she held his gaze.

‘I’m sorry about that… I haven’t told that to anyone and I just… dumped that on you… You must think I’m disgusting but I-.’

‘No. No I don’t Clark, I understand. Everyone does things they aren’t proud of. And sometimes you just go to the wrong people for the wrong reasons, but that doesn’t make you a bad person. Or twisted. There’s nothing disgusting about it.’ she almost seemed relieved. Clark couldn’t begin to imagine the things she’d expected to hear from him when she’d heard he was with a supervillain.

‘But why do I feel so horrible about it then?’ he turned his head away again. Diana was opening her mouth to reply when he unwittingly interrupted her.

‘Promise me that you’ll never tell anyone. Especially about the… about how it started…’

‘You don’t need to be ashamed of that. It wasn’t your fault-‘

‘Just promise me.’ he rubbed his tired head. 

‘I promise. But if there’s anything else, you have to promise to tell me. There’s no reason for worrying about it alone.’ she held her ground but finally smiled.

‘I will.’ he promised after some hesitation.

‘Thanks for telling me. It looks like I didn’t have to use my lasso after all.’ now it was his turn to smile, even though he did a poor job of it, like an actor with a stage fright.

‘Thanks for being so nice to me even after we… didn’t work out...’

‘Clark, that was the tamest break up I had.’ she grinned, leaning onto him. Somewhere below them, a rabbit darted across a field.

‘You’re late.’ Batman said just as soon as he heard the crackle of electricity right behind him. 

‘Clark isn’t here yet either.’ Flash pointed out, trying to catch his breath. The rest of the League was already gathered in the cave, with that one exception.

‘I think we’ll have to make a do without him, he has his own tasks to attend to.’

‘You two have been seriously glaring at each other these past few days. Did mommy and daddy have a fight?’ Hal leaned onto the back of the chair. 

‘Why did you call us here Bruce?’ Diana asked, crossing her arms over her chest. They’ve barely even started the meeting and she already knew it won’t turn out well. Bruce looked at them, moving from one face to the next.

‘Luthor is gone.’

‘What?’ Hal was the first to react, still standing behind him.

‘He’s gone. He left Metropolis on Sunday and just disappeared. He didn’t even show up to receive his medal.’

‘He’s just holed up in his laboratory. He does that all the time. I mean, you should just ask Clark about that.’ Aquaman pointed out the obvious. Batman just took a deep breath, looking straight at Diana.

‘I’m investigating his connection with Luthor. It’s possible he’s being controlled by him.’

‘Bruce…’ she sighed, as annoyed as expected.

‘Controlled how?’ Cyborg asked immediately.

‘I’m still investigating that but I can’t eliminate it as a possibility. How many times has a member of the League gotten under someone’s mind control? And how many of those did Clark account for?’ 

‘And you can prove that how exactly?’ now it was Barry’s turn to disagree that their actual friend is a spy. Bruce looked Diana in the eyes again. She met his gaze angrily, daring him to go on.

‘Clark visited him at least twenty-six times over the last year even when Luthor stopped his criminal activity.’

‘He did explain that to you-‘ she couldn’t help herself but he cut her off, face still impassive.

‘If he’s being controlled then his words mean nothing. Luthor’s planning something big and now he has half of the world rooting for him. He has all the leverage to use against us, just think about that. Why had he been laying low for so long? Why would he save us and let us in the tower? Even if you don’t agree with me, shouldn’t we find him just to ask those questions, Diana?’

All of the league turned to her, waiting for her reply.

‘Only if I’m the one asking. And unless you come up with any proper prove, Clark is coming with us.’

‘Anything?’

Superman flew into the batcave and hovered right next to the monitor. Batman didn’t even lift his head to look at him.

‘He’s not in Metropolis. I looked through some of his labs but most of them are lined with lead.’

A second later, Flash appeared right next to him.

‘Nothing in the Central city either. Len is asking around but the other villains haven’t heard anything from him.’

‘Len?’ Clark lifted one eyebrow at that.

‘Captain Cold, he’s on our side for now.’ Bruce replied almost automatically.

‘Are you sure we should really waste our time on this rather than helping with the rebuilds and catching the rest of the criminals still out there?’ Barry asked, quick to the point.

‘He’s planning something.’

‘He’s always planning something.’ Clark sighed, wholly agreeing with the Flash. The world was still far from recovering from the last crisis when they failed, the least they could do is help fix it.

‘This entire thing seems like a waste of time.’ Barry hummed under his breath, running in place while he waited for the rest of the team.

‘I agree, I don’t think we should spend on all efforts on-‘ Hal flew in and Batman immediately cut him off, asking the most important question.

‘Did you find him?’ Hal tsked and puffed out his chest, more smug than usual.

‘Forget about him and call everyone back, I found an entire new space station.’

‘What…?’

Cyborg went through the data one more time at his processing speed before he presented it to his teammates: ‘From the satellite footage I’ve gathered that a company owned by Lexcorp launched it two hours ago from a platform in the middle of the Pacific ocean. It’s 35,888 kilometres above the Earth, right opposite to where Watchtower was.’

‘He’s luring us inside. There’s no telling what kind of data he gathered when we were at the Lextower or the intel he already had. Our weaknesses, the best strategies to dispose of us.’

‘Do you really think he’d take us all on?’ Barry asked, very doubtful.

‘He could divide us and pick us off one by one. That’s the best method of approach.’

‘Let’s just hope you never turn on us then?’ Hal frowned at Bruce.

‘Can you get us in with a boom tube?’

‘Only unless he didn’t put up sh- done.’

A boom tube opened up with a hiss, illuminating the cave, and they all entered it without hesitation.

The station was enormous, that much was obvious even from the simple corridor to the first room. Luthor was already waiting for them in his best suit.

‘It took you long enough, but welcome.’ he greeted them with a smile Bruce long learned to recognise as fake. The rest of the heroes already had him surrounded but he seemed completely unbothered, pouring himself a drink from the bar that the station was equipped with. Judging by Clark’s reaction, or a lack of one, he seemed to be unarmed too. 

‘I’m not here to kill you off, even though I admit it’d be the best time to do that. Maybe I’d even get an applause. Martini, manhattan, whiskey sour…?’ he continued casually and at least one member of the team seemed pleasantly surprised.

‘I’d just take plain whiskey.’ Hal ordered, eyes shining.

‘What do you want, Luthor?!’ Batman wasted no time asking, actually holding Green Lantern back just in case. Luthor lifted his head up and his eyes found Superman’s.

‘I just wanted to show you around. It’s bigger than your last headquarters and I didn’t want you getting lost.’ he replied, taking a sip from his glass. Every hero in the room held their breath for a moment.

‘You’re giving us the station?!’ Cyborg finally managed, disbelieving.

‘That and a new team member.’ another sip. There was even more confused silence before Luthor pointed his thumb at his chest, ending their misery. Superman couldn’t contain himself any longer.

‘You can’t be serious. Why would you ever want to be a member of the Justice League?!’

‘I’d like to stay at the centre of the attention. Popularity is quite addictive.’ he sounded as confident as usual but he visibly tensed up when the lasso of truth dropped on him. So did Clark. He grit his teeth so hard it hurt.

‘Why do you want to join the League?’ Diana asked immediately.

‘I need to stop Superman from killing himself. He doesn’t realise his value and he’s stupid enough to die for any random scum that walks his way.’ Luthor replied calmly as he continued glaring at her. She could ask him anything right now and he wouldn’t be able to lie.

‘Are you going to hurt anyone?’

‘I’m not currently planning on it. It would be difficult to hide.’

‘Just one more question, Diana.’ Batman requested, looking her in the eyes. She went through an entire catalogue of expressions, most of which would make Ares proud, but finally settled on something akin to resignation. She looked back at Clark who just shrugged his shoulders, exhausted.

‘Did Superman give you any information about the League or other superheroes?’

‘No, at least not intentionally. Are you seriously suspecting him of spying for me?’ that awful error in judgement at least seemed to improve his mood. The heroes looked at each other, feeling a bit silly. 

‘Maybe you can finally give that a rest then.’ Diana concluded with a sigh, moving to lift the lasso from him when Batman suddenly grabbed it for a single question.

‘Why was he at the Lextower then?’ Luthor’s eyes immediately darted to Superman, with his eyes bulging out of his skull and cheeks bright red. They both knew what the reply was. It felt like his insides were getting pushed out of him through his mouth and it got worse the longer he waited to reply.

‘That’s enough.’ Clark groaned, nerves slowly giving out. Wonder woman tore the lasso out of Batman’s hands and he moved to stop her, laying one hand on her forearm.

‘He was fucking me.’ Luthor replied, maybe a little hurried, unable to pass up that moment. All the heroes in the room immediately turned their heads to him.

‘I don’t think I heard that right.’ Hal whispered to Barry. His friend didn’t bother with a reply, frozen in place, the colour of his face merging with his red suit.

Clark opened his mouth before snapping it closed again. He could feel everyone staring, everyone judging him. And he had nothing to his defence, all information he could possibly give them would only rub salt into the wound. He felt so disgusted with himself.

‘Any other questions?’ Luthor asked, unaffected and even a little smug. Wonder woman removed the lasso from him without a single sound. Hal leaned to Barry again, face still wrinkled in confusion.

‘Did he really fuck him?’

‘Shut it Hal.’ Flash hissed back, eyes darting to Clark. There was no need to make this even worse for him than it already was.

Superman finally moved and it was to get to the teleport. Batman let out a long sigh as he followed him on his walk of shame through the corridor. It seemed the other man had finally calmed down enough to say something, voice positively dripping with bitterness.

‘Was that really necessary?’

‘Yes, now I can finally rule out-‘

‘Rule out the possibility I was lying, yes. Believing your teammates would save you some time, wouldn’t it?’ he snapped back and Batman finally reacted, wincing a little.

‘I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t see any reason for… that…’ he quite replied, this time in Bruce’s voice. He touched his arm and Clark shook him off.

‘You’re more like Luthor than you think.’ he finally reached the teleport and turned all his attention to it.

‘I want him in the League.’ he froze with his fingers on the touchpad, not quite able to believe what he was hearing. Batman sighed again and crossed his arms over his chest defensively.

‘It’s worth it for the access to Lexcorp. He’ll bring in the funds, the public support, the technology, it’s a good bargain.’ he looked back at the group, still waiting for him to drag Superman back while keeping their eye on Luthor. They were quite far off but some words from Superman might still carry all the way over to them, he didn’t bother keeping his voice low. Diana was the only one who followed their conversation and judging by the frown graved on her face, she didn’t seem very pleased.

‘You know better than anyone that he doesn’t care if people live or die. If we live or die.’ Superman explained slowly, as if such an elementary thing escaped his intellect. He didn’t bother to turn around to look him in the eye.

‘He’s gotten too influential, we need to keep him close. Just think about it Clark. He’s bought off your apartment, he has shares in the Daily Planet and he bought the debt on your farm.‘ he could see him tense with each new word.

‘You’re hearing about those for the first time, aren’t you? That’s why it was such a ridiculous idea to start anything with him, he’s got you surrounded and when-’

‘Stop it Bruce. Stop meddling into my life. You dumped my dirty laundry on everyone and now you’re lecturing me?! It has nothing to do with the League and nothing to do with you! Just stop it already!’ he finally turned around to growl the words into his face before he punched the controls again.

‘You can’t leave right now. We… we should vote on this-’

He disappeared before Bruce could think of anything to add.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh! This one almost killed me you guys! Conversation, conversation and even more conversation!  
> I need to return to smut but the plot doesn't permit it yet! Why can't I write faster!  
> I swear we'll get some action soon, for the continued sanity of all of us.  
> Also, is Batman too much of a jerk in this one? Yes! No! Probably. The plot demands it.


End file.
